Advertising on public transport

More than 75% of Russians live in urban areas. Since many cannot afford cars, public transport plays an especially important role. It is widespread, highly visible, and grows with the city. Buses run in 1300 Russian cities and towns. More than 100 cities have trolleybuses and trams.

One thing worth taking into account when planning an ad campaign is that a journey often involves several forms of transport — metro, trolleybus, tram or bus. However, Russian towns typically have a dense network of streets, with few metro stations; most journeys are therefore on surface transport.

The advantage of advertising on public transport is that its passengers travel by strictly defined routes. Most of them also belong to a particular socioeconomic class. This makes it easy to get ads to their target audience. Obviously, some people do not use public transport — about 60% of people go to do their shopping on foot or by car, for instance — but even they see the advertising on public vehicles as soon as they step out of their front doors. An advertising campaign on public transport can therefore reach virtually any target audience while remaining relatively cheap.

One of the most promising areas of development in transport advertising is on the railways. The rail network covers the whole country and has huge potential, but there is not much advertising on it as yet. Ads could be placed in railway station halls, on platforms, at open-air stations, and inside carriages on both long-distance and local trains.