New York City’s subways and buses have about 8.5 million riders every day. Transit cards are carried by everybody from construction workers to hedge-fund managers and tourists from across the globe, to nannies minding children and rap stars who own basketball teams and concert/sports venues. And now the MTA has finally debuted a way for marketers to reach that card-clutching audience by placing advertisements on both sides of the MetroCard.

In the launch campaign for the two-sided branding opportunity, New Yorkers may find themselves swiping cards with Gap ads across the front of them that not only spread the Gap name but offer 20 percent discounts for those that visit the retailer’s new flagship store — the first ad to appear on the front of a MetroCard, the fare payment medium on all New York City subways and buses, since the mid-1990s.Continue reading...

Everybody is looking for cash these days, but how to drum it up when everybody is also paying extra close attention to where a wallet’s contents are disappearing to. Cities are no different. Government services are hurting for cash and there are only so many ways to generate more dough.

So cities are getting creative, the New York Times reports. Baltimore is currently trying to sell space on its fire engines to raise some extra pennies. And why not? The city’s current budget has made the elimination of three city fire companies necessary this summer.

Philadelphia is selling ad space on its subway fare cards and one of the city’s main train stops is now named for AT&T. Chicago is selling naming rights to its eleven "L" subway stations. As for the Times' hometown, the naming rights for the Atlantic Avenue subway station at the new Barclays Center in Brooklyn were sold in 2009, and the MTA implemented the Barclays name change in May.Continue reading...