10 of the best creative bus and train handle ads in Asia

With a little imagination, handles inside public transport can become surprisingly successful places to advertise.

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2017: Twitter users have been drooling over this mouth-watering fried chicken ad by food delivery company BD Tong, recently released on subway trains in Korea. Simple - but effective.

2016: Chinese dairy brand Yili partnered with digital agency Cheil PengTai to promote a new healthy yoghurt drink by replacing the handles on 200 Beijing buses with smart health monitors. When gripped, the handles revealed passengers' heart rate, BMI and balance, which could then be sent to their smartphone for ongoing monitoring. Over the month they were in operation, the agency said that 350,000 people used the system.

2012: Korean brands clearly value the direct approach. Nongshim, the Korean instant noodle brand, developed special handles for Chinese buses with a real 'Shin Cup' noodle pot inside to stir passengers cravings on their way home.

2012: Japanese company Shunkosha started testing this 'Strappy' system in Tokyo in mid-2012. Passengers who touched a smartphone to the plastic covering could gain access to adverts, coupons and offers on their handset. Strappy was hailed as 'the future of urban transport advertising' at the time - but seems to now be defunct.

2010: Ignoring the cleanliness of this man's fingernails, we quite like the simplicity of Ogilvy & Mather India's idea to promote the non-alcoholic beer Indus Pride on airport buses.

2009: Fortune Indonesia created these fun 'plait train handles' for the beauty salon chain Johnny Andrean, to help promote their new hair-strengthening shampoo.

2008: The Sydney branch of Euro RSCG, now Havas Worldwide, created this creepy but effective ad for Dettol Instant Hand Sanitizer. (We have to admit that this ad was a poster, not an actual bus carriage with hands for handles, but we still think it warrants inclusion for the idea.)

2007: The reaction to this bondage ad by DDB Singapore for FHM magazine included such comments as 'what a disgrace', 'FAKE!', and 'handcuffs work better...' The brand noted 'promising' levels of interest, however - and a 'significant' increase in readership.

2006: JWT Indonesia created this distrubing ad for SiKAP, an women's NGO for women, to highlight domestic abuse.

2006: Mobit, a Japanese loan company, decorated the Toei Subway Shinjuku Line in Tokyo with neckties in September 2006, in a slightly odd bid to attract the attention of business people who might be in the market for a loan. This one strikes us as a little sinister, for some reason.

Out-of-home advertising is the only offline media category to show consistent growth globally, according to the latest study by Magna Intelligence and Rapport, and in some Asian markets, transit accounts for the vast majority of OOH ad units. Because of the exceptionally high commuter volumes, transit makes up 63 percent of Japan's and 72 percent of China's OOH share, for instance.

But transit ads don't have to be limited to boring posters on the walls of buses and trains. With Korean food delivery firm BD Tong's recent chicken-themed takeover of metros in Seoul's subways attracting attention on social media, we look back at some of the region's most imaginative incorporation of bus and train handles in advertising.

Source:

Campaign Asia