You’re riding the bus when you realize that a screen over the window is blocking the sunlight. Is this the CTA’s new effort to cool off buses in the summertime? Nope, it’s Lester Holt’s head.
Even if you haven’t hopped on the Channel 2 news bandwagon, you may find yourself riding the Channel 2 bus — one of six that the station has paid to decorate. Or maybe you’ve boarded the Dean’s Milk Chug-a-Lug bus in the city or a “Godzilla” bus in the suburbs.
If you’ve seen them, you know these buses don’t just have poster-sized ads affixed to the sides and the back. The buses are the ads; they’re like those street-clogging billboards on wheels except that people are inside, so you’d feel bad if one toppled over.
There’s a rail version as well: elevated trains that have become advertisements for the Illinois Lottery and Maxwell House coffee.
Although buses and trains have displayed ads for years, there’s still something jarring about seeing one completely wrapped in commercial logos and graphics. And “wrapped” is exactly what they are: The vehicles aren’t painted but covered with a decorated vinyl that’s easier to remove than paint.
“It’s like taking off a bandage,” said CTA spokesman Jeff Stern.
Pace began wrapping suburban buses back in September 1993, and the CTA followed two years ago. Other cities with the bus ads include Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New Orleans, New York, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco and Seattle. But the eight wrapped Lottery “L” cars that debuted last fall make up the country’s first wrapped train, said CTA spokeswoman Noelle Gaffney, who noted that previously a London train had been covered with United Airlines advertising.
The driving force behind the CTA’s and Pace’s programs is — no surprise — money.
“We were doing a lot of belt-tightening, and the ultimate decision was, in order to keep fares low and not cut more service we have to raise more revenue,” Gaffney said. “This was a more palatable alternative to raising fares or cutting service.”
She added that wrap revenues this year have totalled about $500,000, of which the CTA will net about 60 percent. Pace spokeswoman Mindy Laflamme said her agency receives about $300,000 annually from wrap advertising.
The CTA this year has had 29 wrapped buses on the road; Pace now has 26. The cost isn’t cheap. For security reasons the CTA doesn’t allow its windows to be completely covered, so what’s known as a “partial wrap” costs about $8,500 to produce plus a $3,400-per-month fee, according to John Blunda, regional vice president of TDI, the company that handles display advertising for the CTA and Pace.
Pace has “full wraps,” with the windows covered by a vinyl that allows passengers to look out while outsiders can’t see in. Blunda said a fully wrapped bus has a $10,000 production cost plus a $7,500-per-month fee.
In contrast, the traditional “king-size posters” displayed on either side of a bus cost about $310 per month each, and the poster on the back has a monthly price of about $190, Blunda said.
The cost differential is justified by the wrap ads’ bigger impact; it’s tough to take your eyes off of those enormous renditions of news anchors or Howie Mandel, whose WGN-Ch. 9 talk show is currently plugged on two buses.
And if you thought the Dennis Rodman billboard caused traffic problems, imagine what would happen if those scantily clad Calvin Klein underwear models appeared not just on side-of-bus posters but around the entire bus. The placement of the windows alone would cause a gapers’ delay.
The transit companies maintain some discretion. Laflamme said she decided that Pace’s suburban communities wouldn’t be thrilled with a proposed Hanes wrap around the back of a bus.
“It’s just the entire back that’s wrapped, and I would not allow that because basically the woman was nude, and it’s larger than life on the back of the bus,” she said.
That’s not the only ad she’s nixed. “I have turned down Fox TV,” Laflamme said. “They wanted to do a `Simpsons’ ad, and they had Bart’s hands covering up the driver’s eyes and fire coming from the wheels. It was really cute. I just couldn’t really see the public thinking it was humorous, and our operations people failed to see the humor in it too.”
Current wrap advertisers on Pace and the CTA represent the auto, computer, phone, film, television and food industries, including one bright-yellow Pace bus touting Mrs. T’s Pierogies. Alcohol and tobacco ads are banned from city and suburban displays, though one CTA bus currently features a wrap for Mr. and Mrs. T’s Bloody Mary and other drink mixes.
Chicago also doesn’t permit exterior political ads; they’re allowed only in rail stations or on the insides of buses and trains. However, they’re permitted in most suburbs.
Laflamme said Pace would turn down an ad for a controversial cause — like either side of the abortion debate — but a campaign is welcome to buy a wrap. So Democratic gubernatorial candidate Glenn Poshard could wrap a Pace bus and then run TV ads showing people entering as an announcer proclaims, “Chicago’s suburbanites are climbing aboard the Poshard bus!”
Poshard spokesman Jim Merriner said wrapping a bus is not part of the campaign’s gameplan.
TDI tries to sell as many wraps as possible, Blunda said, so theoretically the entire CTA and Pace fleets could become mobile ads. But transit officials say their buses and trains aren’t likely to lose their identifiable colors given the prices and the fact that the CTA has more than 1,800 buses and 1,100 trains and Pace has more than 600 buses.
Still, Laflamme said that at last year’s Taste of Chicago riders didn’t recognize one wrapped bus as a Pace bus and declined to board.
Then again, maybe after stuffing themselves they just couldn’t stomach walking into what looked like a bus-sized package of Mrs. T’s Pierogies.
