Every single day we go through, we are bombarded by advertisements. On the television, billboards, and even on our commutes. All Metro-North stations and trains have plenty of advertisements themselves. And on some of the newer trains, they are even testing video boards for advertisements. I have yet to see one of those. But before you know it, I’m sure all the trains will have them. The MTA needs the money.

But I think compared to a lot of other advertisements, Metro-North train ads end up getting looked at a lot longer than most other advertisements. Which, if you are an advertiser, might be a good thing. Take a billboard, for example. You drive by it, or walk by it, and there is only a small finite amount of time where you are actually looking at it. On a Metro-North train, it is impossible to not see an ad. You are essentially sitting in a tin can for an allotted period of time, probably around a half hour, possibly more. You are looking forward, and the ads are just there. Subway ads are sort of there, but you really can go through an entire ride ignoring those, as they are smaller, thinner, and higher up. If an ad is good, there is a good chance a possible consumer is going to look at it, and for a long time. Longer than the few split seconds that some ads get. I’m sitting here for a half an hour. I need something to do.

Just by facing forward, you are going to see a bunch of ads. It is inevitable. You will see them.

Most days I ride the same train, in the morning or the evening. And I sit in the same car both rides. So often times I see many of these ads quite frequently. There are some that I like, and some that I hate. But some of my favorites are the ones that take into account the location and audience of the sign. Whoever designed them understood that they can possibly be looked at for longer periods of time. Because like I said, sometimes I need something to do.

My current favorite ads that are in rotation on Metro-North trains are some ads for Marks Paneth & Shron. I’m not a big city businessman, so I am hardly the target audience, but the concept was intriguing. Each poster has a puzzle. That puzzle gives me something interesting to do while I commute to work. I get the idea of the ad at first glance, yes. But there is the added intrigue of completing a puzzle, if I happen to look at the poster longer than that initial split second.

Two of the Marks Paneth & Shron ads

Another favorite poster of mine were advertising a book, by Dean Koontz I believe. Unfortunately I don’t have a photo of it. The ad had a photo of a book, and a phone number that you could text with your cell phone. When you texted the number, it would periodically send you story excerpts of the story to read on your phone. Personally, I think this is an awesome idea. It advertises your product, it gives people something to do on the train, and it transcends this sort of boundary between the physical world, and the virtual. Japan is a bit more advanced in connecting their ads to online information and websites. Many ads there have QR codes, which is a type of barcode, but it can hold much more data than the UPC codes we are used to on our products. Use your camera phone and take a picture of the code in the ad, and you are automatically forwarded to the ad’s website in your phone’s web browser. Maybe we’ll see that here at some point in the future.

Example of what is called a “design qr code” that I made. If you had a QR reader on your phone, like Japanese cell phones do, you would be forwarded to MTA’s new website (mta.info)

Anyone else have ads that they really enjoy? Other than the Sweet Million ads? (I know a lot of people find my blog searching for pictures of those ads online. They are pretty damn cute. Yay, kitties and puppies!)

As I was leaving Goldens Bridge station today, I noticed that someone had been busy in the station mid morning or early afternoon. In the south-side vestibule there was some new spray-painted graffiti that hadn’t been there in the morning. When I saw it, I made me think that it was about time for a part two to the original train graffiti post I made a few months ago. And so here you go, graffiti part two…

Goldens Bridge is such a small, quiet station. We don’t get much spray paint here. Mostly just penises drawn in the dust of the windows that nobody ever cleans… I’m sure the MTA will send some people to clean the windows. Someday. If the cleaning people’s jobs aren’t cut…

I can’t even begin to decipher that one…

No, I didn’t do this bit of graffiti. Considering my post on my dislike for this ad, I had been pondering something snarky to write on it. Someone else got to it first.

I imagine a bored track worker did this, knowing the third rail was off. That or someone dumb enough to go and write on a live third rail…

A warning for you to watch the gap. Yeah, that gap. The one right on the bottom of her face, under the nose.

A sticker someone left on an M7.

The NY Lottery does like to advertise heavily on public transportation… Trying to make it sound like it easy to win a million dollars in the lottery though, that is bullshit.

Now this certainly seems to me like a racist statement. A poster with a bunch of African kids, attempting to raise money for charity, and someone labels it as a future Obama rally… Classy, real classy.

Some people can’t stand riding on the subway… the massive crowds, the oppressively hot temperature, the noise, the rats… There’s a lot of potential stuff to dislike. However, some people like the trains so much that they ride them continuously. For eleven days. Apparently that is what happened with a thirteen-year-old boy named Francisco Hernandez Jr, a story that was published yesterday in the NY Daily News. Francisco was missing from his home for eleven days. And he was found at the Stillwell Avenue subway station, after “losing track of time” and riding the F, D and 1 trains. Did I mention he did this for ELEVEN DAYS? He also survived that entire time by eating junk food he bought with the ten dollars in his pocket. Where the heck can you purchase ANY food in the city for under one dollar per day?? Plus, the kid isn’t dumb. He didn’t want to be found, so he removed the battery from his cell phone so he couldn’t be tracked or called. Next time you ride the subway though, and you’re thinking how much you hate it, imagine living there.

In other news, the ads that Westchester County does for the train and bus stations make me laugh. They are so remarkably corny. Maybe the messages that they are trying to get across are valid: Feces and Phosphorus aren’t really that great in our reservoirs, but “Scoop the Poop” and “Don’t ‘P’ on Your Lawn” coupled with the incredibly lame people they have pictured, always makes me laugh.
For example, here is the Phosphorus poster:

Really, can you take that man seriously? Just look at the expression on his face! It looks like someone forgot to heed the previous ad, didn’t scoop their dog’s poop, and he stepped in it. While wearing new shoes. And he’s about to cry.

Here is a bonus closeup

Another ad I’ve been seeing a bunch recently on the train is this one about talking to your children about alcohol. They’ve just taken a stock photo of a young girl, telling us that she will have her first drink at age 14. I always wonder about people that are in ads like this one. For example, the woman in the genital herpes commercial that has to say, “I have genital herpes!” How desperate did that actress have to be in order to take that job? Does she get recognized as the “genital herpes lady”? Well, at least that was her decision to be in that commercial. Unfortunately this child had no choice. She was whored out as a stock photo child by her parents. Will friends at school recognize her as the “future alcoholic” from the ad? Perhaps my brain is just messed up from going through mountains of stock photography at work… It does get depressing when you start seeing these stock children all over and you recognize them!

The embarrassment of being in this advertisement may actually lead little Sarah to a life of alcoholism…

Plus this girl looks a lot like the poor Child Abuse flyer kid.

She’s an alcoholic and was abused when she was younger!

The New York Lottery has come up with this new game: Sweet Million. They’ve been advertising like crazy in trains and stations, but I don’t think I really mind. The kitties and puppies and bunnies are so cuuute! The bunny poster is up in my Metro North train, and apparently the Times Square subway station is covered everywhere with ads for it. Large posters on the walls, backlit posters, ads covering the stairs, and ads wrapped around pillars… most of which are in the vicinity of the S train / Shuttle to Grand Central.

It may be the “easiest way to win a million with a dollar” but with 1:3,838,380 odds, “easy” is still pretty damn hard. Hell even I considered purchasing one of these tickets… and I usually think of the lottery as a tax for the stupid people. I am very well aware how ads influence me.

Anyways, enjoy some cuteness. And uhh… maybe buy a lotto ticket. If you do win a million, split it with me?

Good morning from White Plains station.

Hooray, this week the signboards around White Plains station have been updated. A minor but nice improvement, much cleaner type that is a lot easier to read. The speed of the scroll has been increased a bit, though now I would have to say it is probably a little bit too fast.

The outdoor signage has been changed so the train destination is much larger. Hopefully this will help with all the idiots wondering where the trains are going, but considering a lot of the people I see around here, probably not.

Earlier in the week we were also treated with (or subjected to some more interesting advertising) of a new 2010 car, which I believe was the 2010 Buick LaCrosse.

People around the station were passing out reusable black bags with the car logo on it, which will be rather great when I have to go grocery shopping this weekend. :D In the parking lot an actual car was parked there, and you were encouraged to open the doors and take a look inside.

Some people checking out the car

As far as some of the advertising campaigns we get around here, this one was rather cool… or at least different from the norm. Though I don’t know about the name LaCrosse. Because when I see it, I certainly think of something different.

Hello everyone, and good evening from White Plains station. I’m back from vacation now… Returning back to the north is a bit depressing, as the temperature is steadily going down, and the nights are growing longer and longer. Before long the train conductors will be breaking out their flashlights…

Shortly before I went away, I happened to notice the above ad at Goldens Bridge station. I did think it was a bit odd. Along the bottom of the ad it said that it was paid for by the government. After doing more research, it seems that the government has paid five million dollars for this junk.

Immediately when I saw the ad, I thought to myself that this ad was not promoting happy marriage… The government is using taxpayer money to promote heterosexual marriage. Irrelevant of whether a person accepts the notion of gay marriage or not, I really don’t think the government should be spending the money in this way. So what if it comes out to a penny a person? That is a remarkably stupid way of justifying anything. Five million dollars is a LOT of money.

Another ad from the campaign. Ads like this have been posted on public transportation across the country.

Anyone else have any constructive thoughts about this? I say constructive because I really don’t need to be flamed by religious nuts talking about how gays are going to hell, etc. There are so many more constructive things that people could be attacking instead of gay marriage. Seriously, I think the entire human race is obsessed with the fact that they know what is “best” for every other person on the planet, and forcing their beliefs on others.

Perhaps I pay a little bit more attention to the signs and advertisements on the train because I am a graphic designer. Or perhaps it is just because I am observant. Either way, I am often amused looking at the little messages people write on ads, and on the trains. People interacting with their surroundings. Probably stupid people.

Here is my collection to date of delightful bits of train graffiti. Perhaps sometime in the future there will be a part two… and if you happen to have any pictures of anything amusing, be sure to send it to me :D

Advertisements for television shows are quite common on the trains. Apparently this person thinks that TV is shit.

Goldens Bridge tends to frequently get graffiti similar to the one above. My hypothesis is that high school students are the ones making the marks, and Goldens Bridge gets many young people, between the local skater kids and the students that take the train to school. Kennedy High School is right down the street, and a shuttle bus picks up students at the station every morning.

My initial thought in seeing this is that someone forgot to write “For a good time, call…” Assuming that it is in fact a phone number, it is still missing an area code. Trying the various area codes from the New York area, the only promising number is in the area code 914. And that would be Dr. Jim Koo, located in Yorktown. Did someone on the train call information and not have anything to write on? Or maybe Dr. Koo is hoping for you to call him for a good time. He’ll give you a full physical.

Fuck you Conrail? Conrail??? Metro North was formed in 1983, and Conrail was before that. Is someone living in the past, or was this done a long, long time ago?

Apparently I’Am not very good at writing English…

I believe this is the the third week I’ve been taking a new train to work in the morning. I sort of got tired taking the train that came down from Wassaic… Golden’s Bridge was the last stop before White Plains, so there were always few seats, and lots of pushing and shoving to be the first to get in the doors of the train. Ten minutes earlier there is another train that is much less busy, and I can always find a seat without any difficulties.

Of course, there are still odd folks, as there are on probably every train. I made a post a week or so back about people drinking beer on the train on their way home… clearly those people are not cool. You can only be cool if you drink beer in the morning on the way TO work! Shoppers at Target of Mount Kisco, if you smell alcohol on a sales associate at around 8am you probably aren’t imagining it!

Today there was an intriguing man making a complete mess all over the train. There was a puddle underneath him, flowing into the aisles. Up against his crotch, he held a half-empty one gallon jug with water inside. It was a very odd way to be holding it. The lid was pointed down towards the floor, which I assume is where the puddle was coming from. If the jug was pointed the opposite way, I totally would have thought he’d be peeing in it. Thankfully I got off the train shortly after.

Yesterday my “lesbian lover” also made an appearance at the train station. She has an office down the hall from me at work, and the extent we speak is pretty much an occasional “good morning” or things of that nature. A few months back the woman turned up at the train station. She must have felt awkward being around hundreds of strangers, because she saw me and must have thought “That girl! I recognize her! Let’s have an awkward conversation, even though we’ve never talked and I really don’t know her… but hey, at least I know her more than all these other strangers!!” Another coworker that I wait with at the train station, didn’t realize she worked at our company as well, and was entirely convinced that she was a lesbian attempting to hit on me. Yesterday was the second time I’ve seen her at the train station. She didn’t see me, perhaps that is a good thing.

Lastly, I went looking for my chapstick in the bottom of my bag and instead of being able to find it, I found some delightful handouts I’ve received in the past few weeks. I recall seeing a bunch of people standing in the train station lobby looking all suspicious one day, and then they gave me this card:

(at least that is better than getting asked by an obnoxious man about fifty million times whether I was a registered member of the Democratic Party, like I did this morning) Oh, and my personal favorite, the “Jesus literature”. Those people are always passing shit out at the train station. Hey, at least I got one in ENGLISH this time!

In other news, Jesus literature does not burn very well. In case you like, wanted to make a fire with it or something. Just putting that out there…

Did anyone notice the delightful little flyer that was left on our trains yesterday? The one in the shape of a footprint, that said “Wiggle Your toes in the grass…” and on the back had safety tips? Well, I didn’t think it was very convincing, so I designed a new flyer for Metro North. This new one is oh so much more professional, and it has pictures! Doesn’t everyone just LOVE pictures?

Train stations have lots of people… so I guess if you want to get your message out to people, why not hand out propaganda at a train station? From Jesus literature to politicians, free samples to train maps, with a little bit of fearmongering thrown in, we see it all at White Plains train station. I was delighted to notice this morning that the lovely mustached man that I had seen some months earlier, the one who asked me if the pigeon hanging out in the train station had a ticket. He was promoting for some guy named Dan Schorr. In other news, Dan Schorr is also a pirate, the evidence of which is below.

Now I am real sorry I didn’t take that Jesus literature I was offered the other day to draw on that. Even though Goldens Bridge isn’t too busy of a station (compared to White Plains), people still come to hand things out every once and a while, but mostly to leave posters around. The posters never seem to stay long however. Perhaps MTA employees are removing these posters that shouldn’t be there? In my mind though, I imagine a much more amusing situation… considering that when one poster is removed, another has appeared in its place. Opponents go to the train station, rip down their rival’s posters, and then place their own. Here is a great poster I snapped an image of in the morning. How corny is that tagline? I can imagine that meeting. “We can advertise at the TRAIN STATION! On the right track! THE RIGHT TRACK! You get it?!”

Now free things are always nice, but even free things can be considered propaganda. At least to me. Who wants to give anyone free anything… unless it might convince a few of them to buy something? Vitamin Water 10 tried and failed, at least with me. Nasty shit that was. My favorite free thing though, was a nicely designed map of the MTA railroads. The MTA had a table set up one morning filled with maps and schedules and such. I actually keep this in my bag. I’ll probably never use it, but hey, if I ever happen to get lost on the Long Island Railroad again, I’ll have it!