Advertising Posters on the London Underground

Ones we can see versus ones we can't

There are some really good poster ads on the tube at the moment. I completely forgot to blog the fact that there were a whole platform full of the most "creative" ads at Leicester Square station. This was part of an ad agency competition for most creative London Underground advertising - "Copywriting goes Underground". They were on display until the end of August and some were pretty cool.



Very scary to see how long we can potentially spend looking at London Undeground ads - 3 billion minutes according to the poster above!

My favourite tube ads are ones that remind you that you're a commuter and play on some of the emotions you'll be experiencing while reading them - boredom, frustration, over heating, overcrowding, impatience, etc etc. A current one like this sells Britishness and apologises for disturbing you while waiting for your train.



You can almost hear Hugh Grant bumbling his way through the copy "Er excuse me. Awfully sorry for interrupting your journey. Mortified if you were waiting for a train........" The ad for Harrods' Truly British season then goes on to present examples of the British habit for apologising.

No Sex please, we're British

With the next ad - well done if you even managed to see it on the Tube as it was pulled more or less the before the poster paste had even dried.



The ad for a new reality show featuring Jerry Hall with lots of half naked men on leads drew complaints from people saying that it was sexist and showed people as sex objects. The Evening Standard reported that that the ad was pulled "because of its "sexually demeaning" content.

They ordered the posters, which promote her new VH1 series, "Kept", be torn down within hours of going up on the walls of Tube stations."......

"The show has already aired in America, where it had mixed reviews. "Seldom has whoring for ratings seemed quite so brazen," wrote Variety's TV critic. Sceptical minds might wonder if VH1's Tube posters were a publicity stunt." Indeed.

Other Tube posters which drew complaints were ones for the Tube horror flick "Creep" (which a group of us went to see earlier in the year) - although it was re-instated and a poster with a "stereotypical" view of an Italian butcher which almost caused a diplomatic incident! The mind boggles.

Any ads on the Tube that are currently rocking your boat or driving you mad?

London Underground; Tube Posted by annie mole Wednesday, September 07, 2005 Permalink COMMENT HERE
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