It can be revealed that TfL earned £830,000 from Samsung’s recent advertising campaign that saw a reimagined circular tube map displayed at six tube stations.
The contract between Transport for London (TfL) and Samsung Electronics granted them a two-week advertising space in six London Underground stations. The six stations used for the promotion were: Kings Cross, Blackfriars, Paddington, Westminster, Victoria, and Liverpool Street.
The temporary redesign championed the new Circle to Search with Google feature – a new feature on the Samsung Galaxy S24 smartphone, where users can search for anything shown on their phone screen without switching apps.
Usually, advertising campaign materials are designed by the advertising agency and then signed off by TfL as compliant with its specifications, but this time, it was TfL that designed the circular map for Samsung. That was likely a concession to the fact that TfL staff will have the tools and knowledge to make a realistic variant of the classic Harry Beck tube map.
There was also a restriction in the contract limiting Samsung to only using the circular map for marketing. If they produced any merchandise, it was for giving away as part of the campaign and couldn’t be sold later.
That’s likely why requests from map collectors for a copy of the map got turned down.
On top of the £830,000 sponsorship fee, Samsung also had to cover the cost of production, installation and removal of the circular maps. They also only got a handful of maps displayed in each station, with most of the maps left in their conventional style for passengers.
I saw these posters, had no clue what they were about, odd marketing decision
Agree 100%. Meanwhile, as I go up the escalators of Tottenham Ct Rd each day, the digital ad screens are showing ads for TfL itself about 50% of the time, which seems rather silly and must be costing a lot in terms of missed opportunities.
‘odd marketing decision’ – yet here you are commenting on their advertising. I would call that a job well done.
The TFL ads / info are shown in spots where there is no commercial advert booked into that space.
TFL isn’t missing any opportunities at all. It’s filling in what would otherwise be blank space.
I liked the posters, nice they were well paid. Maybe now they can afford to buy mops…..many cars look like the floors are never cleaned
They should have asked for a lot more money out of Samsung for this. The posters are brilliant advertising – really caught my attention.
Nothing beats napping a barging
The circular map can now be downloaded from the TFL website:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-3998-2324