Large Latin American cities, such as Mexico City, Santiago, and Buenos Aires, are nerve centers of activity where millions of people commute daily. This constant flow of citizens creates an unparalleled scenario for Out-of-Home (OOH) advertising, which integrates organically into the urban environment, capturing consumers' attention outside their homes. More than just a medium, OOH advertising has consolidated as a strategic bridge between the physical and digital worlds, offering diverse visibility opportunities and significantly boosting brand presence in the market.
Within this vibrant ecosystem, public transportation—buses, subways, and trains—emerges as a vital artery. These systems mobilize a massive and diverse audience, ranging from students and professionals to workers and homemakers. Advertising in these media not only offers continuous and repeated exposure but, being integrated into the travel experience, it is difficult to overlook. Furthermore, it allows for precise geographical segmentation, as brands can choose specific routes that align with their target audience.
Outdoor advertising has shown a remarkable capacity for adaptation and growth, especially after recent challenges. Although it once focused on crowded urban areas and had to adjust when the population stayed indoors, with the reactivation of public activity, it has experienced a significant resurgence. This phenomenon is partly due to a renewed public enthusiasm for outdoor activities and the adoption of new advertising methodologies. This scenario indicates that OOH, far from becoming obsolete—a common misconception—has evolved and found new relevance. Its inherent ability to capture attention in saturated environments remains a central strength, now reinforced by technological integration, making it a robust and future-proof investment in urban centers.
Choosing the right outdoor advertising format in public transportation is crucial to maximize a campaign's impact. Each option offers distinct advantages that adapt to different marketing objectives.
Buses represent a highly dynamic and far-reaching format. They offer "continuous" and "unparalleled exposure" by traveling strategic routes that cover various points of the city and its periphery, including areas difficult for other advertising media to access. This allows for precise geographical segmentation, as routes can be selected to reach specific target audiences.
Formats on buses can vary from full vehicle surface coverage (known as full branding or integral advertising), which generates a spectacular visual impact, to partial options like the medallion (rear part) or semi-integral. These campaigns are often complemented by street furniture, such as mupis or bus shelters, along the same route to reinforce the message.
The advantages of bus advertising are numerous: its massive reach, constant message exposure in motion, high visual impact allowing for great design creativity, geographical segmentation capability, and excellent cost-effectiveness. They are particularly ideal for product launches or movie premieres, where notoriety and coverage are key. The mobility of buses is a determining factor for brand frequency and recall. Unlike static formats, which offer exposure at a fixed point, buses, being in constant motion, carry the message to various high-traffic areas, commercial zones, and leisure environments. This dynamic ensures that the brand remains in consumers' minds over time, consolidating its recall. The dynamic nature of bus advertising inherently increases exposure frequency in different locations, which can result in greater brand recall compared to static formats, as the same audience might encounter the ad multiple times in different contexts throughout their day. This is a unique advantage of mobile OOH.
Subway, metro, and train systems in large cities concentrate a massive influx of people daily. Advertising in these media is located both inside the wagons and in stations and corridors, taking advantage of the time users spend in transit or waiting.
Available formats are varied and include posters and static billboards, branded trains (either fully on the exterior or only inside, covering seats, friezes, and ceilings), platform panels, walls, and increasingly, digital screens.
The main advantages of these formats lie in the diversity of the audience they reach, the high frequency of exposure due to users' prolonged travel time, and the integration of advertising into the travel experience, which makes it difficult to overlook. Digital screens, in particular, allow for more dynamic and updated advertising. The waiting time in stations and during the metro or train journey becomes a valuable opportunity for deeper engagement. While buses offer continuous movement, advertising in the subway and trains benefits from periods of static exposure in a confined space. This prolonged, captive audience time allows brands to deliver more detailed or interactive messages than would be possible on a fast-moving bus. Brands can leverage digital screens or even static formats within stations to present richer narratives, integrate QR codes for immediate interaction, or even augmented reality experiences, transforming passive viewing into active participation. The difficulty of overlooking these ads becomes a strength for deeper message absorption.
Street furniture is an iconic static format in cities, strategically located in high pedestrian and vehicular traffic areas. It includes elements such as mupis (primarily aimed at pedestrians), opis (oriented to drivers), bus shelters (integrated into bus stops), thermometers, clocks, kiosks, and flagpoles. These supports usually have universal measurements (120x175cm) and many are illuminated at night, which gives them notoriety and elegance.
Their key advantages are high market penetration, wide coverage in provincial capitals and metropolitan areas, and the possibility of contracting through strategically organized circuits using geomarketing studies (Geomex). They offer low production costs for specific actions and have a great capacity for spectacular marketing. Additionally, they effectively complement bus campaigns, creating a more complete brand presence. The synergy between static and mobile OOH is fundamental for 360-degree coverage. Buses and trains provide dynamic reach across diverse geographical areas, while street furniture ensures consistent and high-frequency exposure at key nodal points, such as bus stops and pedestrian zones. A truly effective OOH strategy in a large city would likely combine both, establishing an integral brand presence that captures audiences as they commute, wait, or walk, maximizing both reach breadth and impression depth.
Digital screens, or Digital Out-of-Home (DOOH), are increasingly common in public spaces, including transport stations, shopping centers, and squares. This format allows for the display of dynamic and attractive advertisements, with the ability to update messages in real-time and adapt them to consumer behavior or local events. Programmatic DOOH (pDOOH) has revolutionized the acquisition of advertising space, allowing advertisers to buy space quickly and efficiently based on data and specific triggers, such as weather conditions or time of day.
The advantages of DOOH include its dynamic content, message delivery flexibility, interactivity (via QR codes, augmented reality), significant improvement in audience segmentation, the possibility of instant modifications, and campaign optimization based on data. DOOH is a key enabler for ROI measurement and mass personalization. One of the historical weaknesses of traditional OOH has been the difficulty in measuring return on investment. However, DOOH, especially pDOOH, leverages technology and data. This allows for improved segmentation, instant modifications, and data-driven enhancements. It also enables interactive advertising and impact measurement through QR codes, facilitating direct consumer interaction and providing valuable data on campaign effectiveness. This digital evolution of OOH directly addresses its historical weakness in measurement, transforming OOH from a generalized brand awareness tool into a more precise, data-driven, and even personalized channel. This shift allows advertisers to better track interaction, optimize campaigns in real-time, and demonstrate a clearer ROI, making OOH a more compelling and accountable part of the modern marketing mix.
Below is a comparative table of public transport advertising formats:
Table 1: Comparison of Public Transport Advertising Formats
| Format | Key Advantages | Impact and Reach | Flexibility and Creativity | Cost-Effectiveness |
| Buses | Massive reach, continuous exposure, precise geographic segmentation, visual impact and creativity. | Very high (mobile, diverse routes, difficult to ignore). | High (full branding, striking graphics). | Excellent ratio (accessible rates, long-term ROI). |
| Subway/Metro and Trains | Audience diversity, high exposure frequency, integration into the travel experience. | Very high (captive audience, prolonged travel time). | Medium-High (static panels, train branding, digital screens). | Efficient (difficult to overlook, high recall). |
| Street Furniture (Mupis, Bus Shelters) | High penetration, coverage in metropolitan areas, low cost for specific actions, spectacular marketing capability. | High (strategically located, high pedestrian and vehicular visibility). | Medium-High (universal measurements, illuminated, specific actions). | Low-Medium (low production cost for specific actions). |
| DOOH (Digital Out-of-Home) | Dynamic content, message flexibility, interactivity, improved targeting, data-driven optimization. | High (dynamic ads, real-time adaptability). | Very high (real-time updates, AR, pDOOH). | Optimized (better targeting, clearer ROI). |
The strategic application of outdoor advertising in public transportation is evident in various prominent campaigns in major Latin American capitals.
CDMX, with its vast public transport network, offers fertile ground for OOH advertising. The Mexico City Metro, one of the most used systems worldwide, allows for ad placement in wagons, stations, and corridors, in both visual (posters and billboards) and digital formats.
A notable example of a campaign that leveraged the Metro's infrastructure was Netflix's for "Stranger Things". Although exact dates are not specified, this campaign transformed bus stops and Metro stations into replicas of the "Upside Down," generating an immersive visual impact. The result was massive viralization on social media and an increase in subscriptions, demonstrating how creativity and integration with the environment can boost brand recognition and sales.
In the Metrobús, JCDecaux Mexico has excelled in advertising on Line 7, which runs along Paseo de la Reforma. These spaces, designed with high-quality materials and integrating cultural elements by Lance Wyman, reach nearly 140,000 users daily, in addition to thousands of pedestrians and motorists. Prolonged exposure, visibility from inside and outside the station, and high frequency contribute to high levels of reach and recall for brands. In addition to commercial campaigns, the CDMX Metro has launched public service initiatives, such as a campaign in July 2025 to combat stress and promote emotional well-being among its users, demonstrating the use of these spaces for social value messages. Companies like ISA Corporativo and JCDecaux Mexico are key providers of these spaces, offering solutions in buses, stops, and modal transfer centers across more than 1500 routes nationwide.
Santiago's public transportation, particularly the Metro and the Red Movilidad bus system, also positions itself as an effective medium for outdoor advertising. The Santiago Metro, with 143 stations, offers various advertising supports, from branded trains (complete or internal) to static and digital panels on platforms, walls, and station entrances. Although specific data on recent commercial campaigns with detailed results are limited in the available information, Santiago's public transport system, Red Movilidad, was highlighted in the Top 10 of the B-Brands 2025 study for its positive contribution to people, the environment, and the economy. This reflects a positive perception of the system that can benefit brands associated with it.
Regarding buses, companies like Yago's Publicidad and Turistik offer advertising on urban buses, including full branding options or partial formats. Turistik, for example, highlights its Hop On-Hop Off tourist buses as a "moving, high-impact advertising" medium that covers the main attractions of Santiago's eastern and central areas, offering creative and striking designs. The "Pay your fare and respect" campaign by the Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications (MTT) and Red Movilidad in December 2024, focused on education and reducing fare evasion, is an example of how these media are used to communicate important messages to citizens.
In Buenos Aires, outdoor advertising in public transportation also plays a fundamental role in connecting with the urban audience. Although information on specific commercial campaigns with quantifiable results in the last 18 months is less detailed in the provided materials, OOH presence is significant. The Buenos Aires Subte, like the CDMX and Santiago Metro, is a space with high user concentration. Brands like Visa have leveraged public transport infrastructure for promotions, such as the "Subte Promo from your phone Contactless" in 2024-2025, which offered a 90% reimbursement on fares when paying with Visa Contactless. While not an advertising campaign in the subway in the traditional sense, it demonstrates how brands can integrate their services with the transport experience. Colectivos (buses) in Buenos Aires are also a key support. Companies like Visión Marcas have renewed commercial agreements with transport operators, ensuring coverage on numerous bus lines in the city, aiming to offer the greatest visibility in the country's main commercial centers. McDonald's Mexico's "Choose your Fav" campaign, although not exclusively on public transport in Buenos Aires, did use "transportation media" as part of a broader deployment that included Mexico City and achieved over 1.2 billion OTS and an increase in sales, illustrating the potential of integral OOH. Outdoor advertising in Buenos Aires, like in other capitals, focuses on technological innovation, personalization, and sustainability.
For outdoor advertising campaigns in public transportation in Latin American capitals to be truly effective, it is fundamental to consider several strategic keys that go beyond simply placing an ad.
The evolution towards programmatic DOOH is an unavoidable trend. The ability to manipulate digital screens in real-time, adapt messages according to weather, time of day, or local events, and target ads to specific demographic groups transforms OOH into a much more dynamic and efficient channel. Artificial intelligence (AI) plays a crucial role here, allowing for better data collection, more precise segmentation, and optimization of advertising spend. This means that campaigns can be more relevant and, therefore, more impactful for the audience.
Combining OOH advertising with mobile devices is a powerful strategy. Elements such as QR codes, NFC tags, or augmented reality (AR) experiences in physical ads can direct consumers to digital platforms, websites, or contests, creating deeper and more measurable interaction. This linkage not only increases engagement but also allows for more precise tracking of campaign performance, an aspect historically challenging for traditional OOH.
In an urban environment saturated with stimuli, creativity is the differentiating factor. Ads must be visually impactful, concise, and easy to read, quickly capturing attention. Spectacular campaigns, which cover large surfaces or use innovative formats (such as 3D billboards or immersive experiences), generate greater notoriety and brand recall. The ability to tell a story persuasively, even in a limited space, is fundamental.
Although OOH advertising has a massive reach, effectiveness is maximized with precise geographical segmentation and the choice of strategic locations. Knowing the target audience's "consumer journey" and placing ads in high-traffic areas relevant to that segment (near shopping centers, universities, gastronomic hubs, etc.) ensures that the message reaches the right audience at the opportune moment.
Setting clear objectives and measuring campaign success is essential. Although ROI measurement in OOH can be more complex than in digital, tools such as vehicular and pedestrian traffic tracking, brand recall surveys, and analysis of digital interactions (QR scans, social media mentions) provide valuable data to evaluate and optimize future campaigns. The ability to adapt the strategy in real-time, based on performance, is a competitive advantage.
Outdoor advertising in public transportation in large Latin American cities such as CDMX, Santiago, and Buenos Aires, far from being a static and traditional medium, has transformed into a dynamic and essential component of modern marketing strategies. Its ability to offer massive reach, continuous exposure, and precise geographic segmentation makes it a highly cost-effective investment. The key to standing out in this competitive landscape lies in the intelligent integration of technology. The rise of programmatic DOOH, synergy with mobile devices, and the use of data for personalization and measurement are redefining OOH effectiveness. These advances allow brands not only to capture the attention of a moving audience but also to generate deeper interactions and demonstrate a clearer return on investment.
While specific success cases with detailed metrics may vary in their public availability, the evidence suggests that the most impactful campaigns are those that combine bold creativity with data-driven strategic planning and an omnichannel integration vision. Latin American capitals, with their constant urban pulse and millions of public transport users, will continue to be a vibrant laboratory for innovation in outdoor advertising, offering unlimited opportunities for brands that know how to leverage their dynamism.
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