Intersection and the New York Transit Museum Transform Subway Stations into Digital Holiday Storefronts
Just in time for the holidays, Intersection is teaming up with the New York Transit Museum to once again transform subway stations into interactive digital pop-up shops, enabling millions of daily commuters to browse and purchase transit-themed gifts via the MTA’s On the Go kiosks as they wait for trains.
Beginning Nov. 25 and running through the holiday season, the Transit Museum Gift Guide will be live across 161 kiosks in 34 stations across New York City, including major hubs like Grand Central, Union Square, and Fulton Street. Transit customers can browse products, including apparel, collectibles, children’s toys, and more, and push a selected product to their smartphones via text message or email to seamlessly complete the purchase—all while waiting for their train. The campaign, which celebrates the museum’s 40th anniversary, is expected to reach more than two million customers daily.
“Engaging consumers today is about meeting them where they are. With millions of New Yorkers and visitors navigating the City during the holiday season, public transit is the perfect venue to reach them,” said Damian Gutierrez, strategy lead at Intersection. “This campaign is just another example of how innovation in advertising can drive revenue for the MTA while improving the experience for customers across the board - in this case, creating an opportunity to shop for fun transit products while actually in-transit.”
The Transit Museum Gift Guide comes on the heels of a record-setting interactive New York Lottery campaign enabling customers to play Tic-Tac-Toe against MTA riders in other stations in real-time in a first-of-its-kind interactive ad developed by Intersection. Generating the highest engagement ever seen on Intersection’s kiosks during its two-week run, customers played more than 90,000 times, with nearly 50,000 users opting to play again after their first go.
“This is a fantastic way to browse the Museum’s collection of gifts and choose something for that special someone,” said Regina Asborno, deputy director of the New York Transit Museum. “Displaying our holiday merchandise on the OTG kiosks in an interactive format brings the catalogue to life and makes that subway wait time just that more productive.”
As part of a public-private partnership with the MTA New York City Transit, Intersection developed and built the On the Go kiosks, which provide countdown to arrival, one-touch visual directions based on real-time train status and neighborhood maps. All of these services are paid for by advertising on the kiosks’ dynamic, contextually relevant advertising platform that offers programmatic, place-based video, transactional and interactive capabilities.
