MacGougan at Large

Notes on NYC - 7

NYC Advertising

Whenever I go to NYC, I’m always interested to see the ads, particularly the wall flyers and the subway signs. The flyers crowd sidewalk-adjacent surfaces where in other cities you might see grafiti. They range in production value from slick, billboard-like graphics to do-it-yourself missing cat announcements. Some of the flyers appear to be random images and gibberish. I assume those are talking in code to a select audience that doesn’t include me. 

The ads in subway stations and subway train cars are all very slick and official. They aren’t necessarily ads you’ll see anywhere else. In the stations, there are lots of ads for current movies, TV shows, and Broadway shows. The train cars used to have lots of little ads for random businesses, particularly trade schools. Now companies can have big ads that take half or even all of the available wall space in a given train. Since that option became available, most of the in-train ads are for start-up companies - possibly national but just as likely to be specific to NYC.

The irony here is that I spend much of my life avoiding ads of all kinds. My television watching is an ongoing Whack-A-Mole game of me vs. advertisers. But somehow the signage ads in New York add to - rather than detract from - my enjoyment of the city.