Print Solutions July 2006
FEATURE ARTICLE
LARGE FORMAT PRINTING
Printing In Motion Underground
BY REBECCA TRELA
In Brief
A new form of subway advertising creates opportunities for large format
printing.
 
Frames from one of the early submedia ad campaigns (for Target Corp.) look like
a flipbook at a standstill. These photos were taken from a subway car. |
Gazing out the subway window one Wednesday in June,
Mindi Levitz, a personal trainer in Washington, D.C., saw an Infiniti sedan
speeding alongside the train car. Unfazed, the California native returned to a
conversation with her sister.
It wasn’t a real car, of course – Levitz was watching a subterranean “commercial,” a new form of advertising that’s growing in popularity in big cities across the nation and around the world.
There are installations in New York, Chicago, Washington D.C., Atlanta,
Shanghai, Tokyo, Istanbul, Bucharest and many other cities.
What riders on moving subways see as a 15- to 20-second motion picture is
actually a projection from long rows of backlit boxes hung on tunnel walls. The
boxes are fitted with photographic stills that seem to move because the train
does – much like a child’s flipbook.
“Right when you go into the tunnel, and it’s dark, suddenly there’s light and it’s moving so it catches your eye,” Levitz says.
In the U.S. the ads are a proprietary technology, based on a 19th century
children’s toy called a zoetrope, a cylinder with slits cut in the top, fitted with
pictures and spun to make a
“movie.” The idea was reformatted by a physics graduate student, Joshua Spodek, and laid
out linearly. Together with Matt Gross, Spodek patented the technology and
formed N.Y.C.-based ad firm Submedia, which began installing campaigns in 2001.
Since then, hundreds of advertising campaigns have been launched, attracting
blue chip companies such as Coca-Cola, Ford, BMW, American Express, GM, Target
and United Airlines. Submedia has also done
“walk-by” projects in airports, theaters and shopping malls, giving viewers the same
animated effect from the motion of their gait.
According to John Butzinger, an executive VP and Director of Techonology at
Submedia, the length of the display depends on both the speed of the train and
the length of the video content.
“If the train is moving really slowly around a curve, it might be only 300 feet
long. If it’s moving quickly, the display will be 600 feet long.”
Each of the ad cards slipped into the display boxes is 40” tall and 50” wide, according to Ed Reinke, a representative for N.Y.C.-based Artisan
Digital, which prints the majority of Submedia’s ad cards. Displays range from 80-190 panels, printed on Kodak Duratrans sheets
in a LightJet Digital C process. Submedia takes motion picture content from
advertisers and converts it to a series of PDF stills, which are dropped in
Artisan’s FTP site. From there, it’s 3-5 days until delivery.
“If you look at just one card, you can’t tell what the image is, much like looking at a movie strip,” Reinke says. After printing the ad panels, they are double laminated and
carefully die cut.
“If the die cut is not done exactly, the movie will seem to skip like an old
projector,” Reinke continues. It’s the most difficult part of a process he describes as “really very simple” and also inexpensive, because of the volume. Artisan is not involved in the
direct-selling process.
Although the technology was slow to bloom in some markets, Submedia’s popularity has taken off in the past two years. Advertisers like the displays
in subways because the audience is captive, and independent studies show a high
content retention rate among consumers. Transit authority boards are eager to
bring down debt and rider fares with ad revenues, which are split in varying
percentages with Submedia.
Ads cost between $75,000 - $100,000 per month for the media space, plus
production costs, Butzinger says. Some subway systems, however, can support
multiple campaigns in different tunnels concurrently, and some transit
authorities have estimated millions of dollars a year in revenue.
One of the most challenging parts for Submedia, Butzinger says, is that the
panels must be installed around the schedule of a working rail system.
“You have to prove that the technology is safe and that it won’t interfere in any way with their operations.” After the mounting boxes and panels undergo a transit authority approval
process, they are installed during regular track maintenance in the wee hours
of the morning when trains are idle. Maintenance, Butzinger says, is
infrequent.
“The boxes can get as dirty as you want and it won’t affect the image at all.” They are unaffected by moisture and brake dust and the cards are changed every
one to three months, depending on the advertiser’s campaign.
The walk-by campaigns are similar, but the panels are smaller and images are
recognizable at a standstill. Submedia gained renown for an installation at a
recent Chanel fashion show in Shanghai, where VIPs entered the building through
a tunnel adorned by the company’s advertisements. As attendees approached the show, they seemed to be
accompanied by fashion models striding alongside.
Although Submedia dominates the U.S. market, two other companies – Motion Poster and Metrocom – install animated subway ads around the world. These companies, however, hang
posters which are illuminated by motion-activated lights, according to the
South China Morning Post. A similar project of hand-painted panels was
installed in the New York City subway by artist/photographer Bill Brand in
1981.
Rebecca Trela is an assistant editor at Print Solutions magazine. Email her your comments at rtrela@PSDA.org.
