Tough Days, Metro Ads, and Other Stories . . . Maybe
*Today was a toughie in my little world. Nothing seemed to go right at work, and by the time five o’clock rolled around, I was ready to come home and build some nightstands. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day and I can get much done. However, today started ominously enough with sudden sleet and ended with me wanting to bang my head on my computer screen. Let’s just say that I am very glad to be sitting on my bed right now, doing nothing but blogging before I hit the shower and then the pillows.
*So, the new Metro ads. If you’re a Metro commuter and haven’t seen them and you’re curious, get thee to the Red Line and check it out between Metro Center and Gallery Place, and Gallery Place and Judiciary Square. When our Metro announcer (driver? conductor?) told us to look out the window for a surprise, my whole train was baffled and did so. Most everyone burst out laughing while I could only cluck my tongue and say, “It’s all about product placement and maximum exposure.” The woman sitting next to me agreed, and while I failed to go into details or a long, rambling reminiscence about my work at Dyn-o-mite!, I thought that Metro Center and Gallery Place were the perfect places to debut the ads. Trasnfer points where you’ll expose the maximum (or close) amount of people possible to ads. If I could place a dollar value on those 15 seconds, then calculate how many passengers are on those trains, then multiply all that times the number of runs the trains made in both directions with the ads functioning, I could tell you how much the sponsor, not the Metro system, made yesterday. Oh, it’s a whopping number, I’m sure, and over time it’s probably way more than the $800,000 that the ads will generate for Metro over the next two years. Don’t believe me? Heh, you have no idea . . . When it comes to advertising, the big winner will always be the sponsor. But just wait: They’ll find a way to integrate the oh-so-valuable (really) mentions at some point. To be clear, I’m neither frowning on it nor giving it my way thumbs up, I’m just commenting that, like Michigan nearly did, Metro’s not making nearly as much as the two companies running the ads. However, the Metro and Michigan are two different things.
*Now that I’ve finished Sarah Vowell’s book on presidential assassinations, I find myself intrigued to go find not those famous places of political murder, but a book on the Fine Arts Commission. DC, even from afar, has always seemed a very though-out city, incredibly so, and I’d like to get my hands on something telling me about the commission’s history. I need to find that. Oh, i also need to read that Metro history book. Sounds interesting.
*Okay, off to bed. I have more to say, but no time to say it. I’m sleepy I need to climb into bed. Now.
