Ryanair to Target Advertising on Boarding Passes

February 21, 2011

Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
Wall Street Journal

By DANIEL MICHAELS

In a move to boost revenue from sources other than ticket sales, Irish budget airline Ryanair Holdings PLC is teaming up with a travel-media company to sell targeted advertising aimed at passengers booking and checking in online.

Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary gestured during a press conference in Marignane near Marseille-Provence airport, southern France, on Feb. 1.

London-based Ink, the world's largest producer of in-flight magazines, is working with Ryanair to offer ads that can be customized according to a traveler's route and demographic data. The ads will appear online and on home-printed boarding passes.

Many airlines do similar things, but the Ink's approach aims to tailor pitches much more precisely to an individual traveler to generate higher ad rates. Ink Chief Executive Jeffrey O'Rourke said initial contracts with advertisers are being priced at several times the rates for similar Web ads.

A Ryanair spokesman said the ad revenue will help it keep airfares low. "Passengers must reference their boarding card on a number of occasions during a trip, providing repeat exposure for advertisers," the spokesman said. Dublin-based Ryanair requires passengers to print their own boarding passes before arriving at the airport or potentially pay a fee of €40, or about $55.

Ryanair's business model is based on offering inexpensive tickets to generate traffic and then selling other products and services, known as ancillary revenue. Ryanair also strikes deals with airports to pay the airline fees based on the volume of passenger traffic.

Ink's deal with Ryanair comes as carriers world-wide are working to boost ancillary revenue from sources such as access to airport lounges or hotel rooms booked through an airline's website.

Airlines generated more than $22 billion in ancillary revenue last year, according to a study published by travel-technology group Amadeus and IdeaWorks, a consulting firm specializing in ancillary revenue. That figure represents less than 5% of airlines' operating revenue, the report said, although the figure is much higher for some carriers.

Ryanair, a pioneer in generating ancillary sales, derives more than 20% of its revenue from such sources.

So far, most ancillary revenue has come from airlines charging for services once included in a ticket, such as baggage and seat reservations. A recent report from Forrester Consulting predicted that airlines' ancillary revenue from other sources, such as hotel bookings, will rise 30% over the next five years. "This is significant when compared with overall travel industry growth of 3% per year," the report said.

The Ryanair-Ink venture will focus in part on advertising tied to departure airports, where travelers are a captive market and data about them is valuable to retailers, Mr. O'Rourke said. Much current advertising on boarding passes is tied to destinations. But passengers rarely shop after landing, and airlines rarely know where customers go once they leave the arrival airport, so it is difficult to target advertising. In contrast, carriers can assume that most passengers will have time to shop at the departure airport.

"This is a way to stimulate demand and encourage people to shop," Mr. O'Rourke said. "Departure is much more targeted than arrival."

Airport retailing today generates more than $20 billion in revenue world-wide and is set to rise to $44 billion in 2015, according to consulting firm Datamonitor.

Retailing represents a significant and growing portion of airport revenue, but most airports have little data about their customers. Airlines typically haven't cooperated much with airports.

Ink, which publishes in-flight magazines for more than 30 airlines, is developing targeted advertising offerings with airlines beyond Ryanair. Ink aims to profit by linking airline data with airport retailers.

But while airlines collect extensive information about their passengers, many carriers are unable to capitalize on it. Older information systems don't allow easy parsing of customer data for advertising purposes. Ryanair, like most budget airlines, has grown over the past decade, so its data systems are more flexible.

"Using passenger data sounds like low-hanging fruit, but for many airlines it means an expensive overhaul" of computer systems, said Dermot Davitt, deputy publisher of the Moodie Report, a travel-retail newsletter.

This article was very interesting to me because I have taken RyanAir myself and I know several of my friends have because it is so affordable especially for traveling college students. I think putting advertisments on tickets is very clever because when waiting in line to board it seems like I reread my boarding pass about 50 times. If there was an advertisement on there I would no doubt have it memorized by the time I boarded.

Antiabortion Billboard in SoHo Is Removed

February 25, 2011

Time: 50 minutes
Wall Street Journal


By Michael Howard Saul

The controversial billboard in SoHo that linked an anti-abortion message with an image of a young black girl has been taken down, the company that owns the advertising space confirmed Thursday.

The antiabortion billboard above Watts Street and Sixth Avenue read: ‘The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.’

“It’s in the best interest to take it down,” said Peter Costanza, general manager of Lamar Advertising in New York. “I don’t want any violence to happen.”

The ad, located at Watts Avenue and Sixth Avenue in Lower Manhattan, reads, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.” That message is above a picture of a black girl wearing a sleeveless sundress.

Costanza said he received a report that critics of the sign harassed people at a nearby restaurant. He said he’s not taking a stand on the content of the ad but was concerned about plans for a protest.

Life Always, the antiabortion group that placed the ad, said it “strongly disagrees” with its removal because the “message holds true, and truth has a place in the public square.” The ad, which was to be up for a month, cost $20,000; the group is not expected to be charged.

City Council Speaker Christine Quinn said the girl’s mother, Tricia Frasier, did not know her daughter’s image would be used for this type of political message. “I spoke with Tricia Frasier, who is pleased that her daughter’s image will no longer be seen on 6th Avenue”

Quinn said Frasier is pleased her daughter’s image will no longer be seen “in this offensive and inflammatory billboard that enraged so many of my constituents.”

The speaker is slated to meet with Frasier and some council members on Friday to discuss ways to protect the girl’s image in the future. “In the name of common decency, I call on all anti-abortion groups to pledge never to use this image again,” Ms. Quinn said.

Hal Kilshaw, a spokesman for Lamar, said the company is concerned about setting a precedent that controversial signs will be removed at the first whiff of protest. But he said the company needed to weigh the sign’s backers’ first-amendment rights versus “concerns about fairness to tenants in the area.”

I couldn't believe that an advertisement like this was actually approved. It does seem incredibly controversial to me. I know that everyone will have varying opinions on the advertisement depending on their personal opinion, but I feel that regardless of one being pro choice or pro life, a line was crossed when the ad was put up.

Outbursts Trumped Big Ratings in 'Men' Call

FEBRUARY 26, 2011

Time: 2 hours
Wall Street Journal

By SAM SCHECHNER and LAUREN A.E. SCHUKER

By halting production on the eighth season of "Two and a Half Men," CBS Corp. and Time Warner Inc.'s Warner Bros. are turning away from a proven hit with both viewers and advertisers.

Charlie Sheen's antics led to the cancellation of the season.

Outbursts from star Charlie Sheen led the media companies to cut off production of TV's most-watched comedy, potentially ending a program that helped lead a revival in TV sitcoms.

New episodes of "Men" on CBS average 14.7 million viewers. Reruns on CBS rake in nearly three quarters of the audience, and it is also popular in nightly syndication on local TV stations.

It's now unclear whether new episodes will ever be made, however, according to people familiar with the matter.

CBS' and Warner Bros.' decision Thursday came less than six hours after Mr. Sheen went on an erratic rant in a radio interview against topics as varied as Alcoholics Anonymous, Thomas Jefferson, and "Men" co-creator Chuck Lorre.

"I've spent, I think, I don't know, the last decade effortlessly and magically converting your tin cans into gold," he said, in an apparent reference to Mr. Lorre's scripts.

CBS Corp. CEO Leslie Moonves learned of the radio rant while at a party the company was hosting for investors in midtown Manhattan, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Mr. Moonves spoke by telephone with Bruce Rosenblum, president of Warner Bros. Television Group, the person said. Together, the two men decided to pull the plug.

"Based on the totality of Charlie Sheen's statements, conduct and condition, CBS and Warner Bros. Television have decided to discontinue production of 'Two and a Half Men' for the remainder of the season," the companies said.

Mr. Sheen has said in various public statements that he is sober and is ready to work. Mr. Sheen's base salary is roughly $1.2 million per episode, according to people familiar with the matter.

Representatives for Mr. Sheen and Mr. Lorre didn't return requests for comment.

For CBS, the shutdown will likely result in lower viewing levels and therefore lower advertising revenue. The show brought in roughly $162 million in ad revenue for the network in 2009, according to Kantar Media estimates.

But the network said late Friday that "any ratings declines will be more than offset by the reduced programming costs for the time period." CBS pays Warner Bros. approximately $4 million per episode, according to a person briefed on the matter.

Jon Friedman discusses the business implications of CBS' decision to shut down production of its hit show 'Two and a Half Men' for the rest of the season in the wake of star Charlie Sheen's rant against the show's producer.

After ad sales, CBS turns a "small profit" on that, another person said.

Longer term, CBS could suffer from losing its Monday anchor, a show that helped launch Mr. Lorre's "The Big Bang Theory" and "Mike and Molly."
Earlier


Warner Bros, which produces the show, will miss out on eight episodes for a show it sells not only to CBS, but also to local television stations and to cable network FX.

One person familiar with the company said those episodes would have represented $10 million to $12 million in net profit for the studio, after production costs, star salaries and "profit participants" including Mr. Sheen.

If "Men" does not return at all, Warner Bros. could miss out on those sales for as long as the show would have remained on the air. Warner Bros. and CBS in 2009 inked a new deal to extend the show through next season, ending in 2012.

"Men" has been on hiatus since January, after executives at both Warner Bros. and CBS pressed Mr. Sheen to enter rehab.

In its eight seasons on the air "Men" has soldiered gamely through a tough time for TV comedies. They ruled the airwaves in the 1980s and 1990s, but for much of the last decade new comedies lost steam.

But now TV networks are pushing a revival, in part because Mr. Lorre showed he could replicate his success.
—Nat Worden contributed to this article

It is amazing to me how one person can have such an affect on the media and so many components. Two and a Half Men is an incredibly successful show, and without it, the advertising will go down significantly in the time slot until they can build up another show with an equal amount of viewership.

New Airline, New Ads

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

Time: 30 minutes
Wall Street Journal

By SUSAN CAREY

Five months after United Airlines and Continental Airlines sealed their legal merger, the combined company said it will introduce an "interim" advertising campaign this week and begin changing the United website to comport with the new look, which melds the United name with the well-known globe that Continental used.

United's rebranding campaign will keep Continental's globe. Above, a flight departs San Francisco last week.

United Continental Holdings Inc.'s chief of brand marketing, Kevin McKenna, said the new ad campaign will debut Tuesday on billboards and in the carrier's Hemispheres magazine. Later in the month it will roll out in newspapers and magazines in the two airlines' hub markets, with special emphasis on the competitive New York-area market. Continental has a big hub in Newark, N.J.

In April, the carrier, known as United, will unveil new signage at the stadiums of the five Major League Baseball teams it sponsors, he said, and in May that signage will begin to appear in its large airports. Mr. McKenna said the new logo and look will immediately begin appearing in connection with the carrier's various other sponsorships, including the Professional Golfers Association and the Academy Awards' Oscars.

Already, United has repainted 155 regional aircraft flying on behalf of the company, along with 31 mainline United jetliners. Another 118 Continental mainline planes have been renamed. As reported, the combined company is keeping the Continental paint job and globe logo and merely changing the name on the Continental planes to United. The new United, based in Chicago, is the world's largest airline by traffic.

Continental's blue and gold globe logo, already featured in its stand-alone "Work Hard. Fly Right" ads, will be featured as the backdrop in the new ads, but now the name United is featured next to the globe in the company's logo. The new ads, which won't have a tagline, will highlight the combined airline's larger route network, new "outlook," low-fare guarantees and various product attributes, according to a review of six examples.

United said Continental's ad agency since 1998, New York-based Kaplan Thaler Group, will handle the new campaign. United's existing agency, Minneapolis-based Barrie D'Rozario Murphy, will continue to work on marketing projects.

Effective in March, the United website will undergo changes so the new logo appears at the top of the home page, and the site will begin using photographic images instead of United's quirky illustrations. This also represents the end of the road for United's "tulip" logo, the overlapping two letter Us that have been part of its look since the early 1970s.

"Lots of people are not too pleased about seeing the tulip retired," Mr. McKenna acknowledged. Fans of the old logo have a Facebook page dedicated to saving it and Internet chat rooms are rife with debate about the merits of the tulip vs. the globe.

But the combined company has chosen to retain United's theme song, George Gershwin's 1924 "Rhapsody in Blue," which has been in use since the mid-1970s, he said. It obviously wasn't a hard decision, given that Continental's globe is blue.

The globe, which Continental has been using since 1991, is an abstract of the 140- feet-tall Unisphere stainless steel sculpture that has been standing in Queens, N.Y., since the New York World's Fair of 1964-1965.

Mr. McKenna said the two carriers won't mesh their websites until 2012, and the rebranding effort at its airports and on its fleet won't be completed until 2013. Workers will get new uniforms in mid-2012. The interim ad campaign will give way to a new one in March 2012, after the two companies hope to be fully integrated. He declined to comment on the company's ad budget.

But in anticipation of a day this spring when airport employees and check-in kiosks from each side will be able to handle passenger transactions for both companies, Mr. McKenna said, airport agents and flight attendants will be issued lapel pins with the new logo and workers on the ramp and in cargo and catering will receive new caps.

This article was really relevant to me because my uncle used to be a pilot for United Airlines. I know that airlines have been struggling because it is such a difficult industry, but hopefully with the merger, this will be a successful new company.

Amazon Threatens to Cut Affiliates in California

MARCH 1, 2011

By SCOTT MORRISON

Ramping up its battle against Internet sales taxes, Amazon.com Inc. has warned it will sever ties with thousands of California-based advertising affiliates if the state government passes legislation requiring the e-commerce giant to collect taxes on items sold to residents.

In a letter to California's Board of Equalization, which oversees the collection of property taxes, sales taxes and other fees, Seattle-based Amazon said four bills introduced to the state legislature are unconstitutional because they would ultimately require sellers with no physical presence in California to collect sales tax merely on the basis of contracts with California advertisers.

"If any of these new tax collection schemes were adopted, Amazon would be compelled to end its advertising relationships with well over 10,000 California-based participants in the Amazon 'Associates Program'," wrote Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president for Global Public Policy, in a letter dated Feb. 24.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 ruled that companies aren't required to collect state sales taxes if they do not have a physical presence in that state.

Some cash-strapped states, however, have passed legislation requiring Internet retailers to collect tax if they have marketing affiliates in those states. The affiliates are typically websites that provide links to Amazon or other online retailers in exchange for a cut of any resulting sales.

Amazon has responded by ending affiliate programs in North Carolina, Rhode Island and Colorado. Amazon has also said it will cut ties with Illinois-based affiliates if the state governor signs recently passed legislation into law. Amazon is also at odds with state governments in Texas and New York.

In his letter to the Board of Equalization, Mr. Misener noted that "similar legislation in other states has, counterproductively, led to job and income losses and little, if any, new tax revenue."

California passed such as law in 2009, but it was vetoed by the governor.

California Board of Equalization member Senator George Runner said in a statement that Amazon's letter made it clear the bills in question would have negative impact on jobs in the state.

"In no uncertain terms, Amazon has made it clear to me that the checks they send Californians will be cut off overnight if pending legislation aimed at regulating their operations becomes law," said Mr. Runner.

I am from California, so this is not the first that I have heard of the huge taxes that are being imposed in order to pay off the massive amount of debt. It's a really unfortunate situation however, that so many California companies will suffer because of the state that they reside in. California is in desperate need of a structural revamping, because soon enough people and companies will be moving out, because taxes are simply too high.

Twitter Big on Smaller Advertisers

MARCH 2, 2011

Time: 1 1/2 hours


By AMIR EFRATI

Twitter Inc. is a hot property among investors, who are pumping up the company's valuation. But whether the start-up can live up to its multibillion-dollar appraisal depends on the likes of David Szetela, who holds the purse strings of numerous small and medium-sized advertisers.

Mr. Szetela, owner of online-ad agency Clix Marketing in Louisville, Ky., has had

his clients pay for ads on Google Inc.'s Web-search engine and on social-networking site Facebook Inc. But in January, a Twitter representative approached him to try advertising on the service, which lets users broadcast messages with 140 characters or less called tweets.

Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has hired ad sales directors and staff.

So Mr. Szetela bought ads on Twitter for five companies, including a health-supplement retailer. He also used Twitter ads to promote a book by venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki called "Enchantment," targeting users who expressed interest in the book's topic, persuasion tactics, by tweeting about it or searching for related information using Twitter's search feature.

The upshot: While Mr. Szetela spent more money advertising the book on Google and Facebook than on Twitter over the past few weeks, he said the Twitter ads—which cost more than $4,000 in total—led to more preorders of the book. The orders were in the "high hundreds," he said, adding that Twitter's "ability to target so efficiently and interject advertisements into a social conversation is unique."

Whether Twitter can woo more advertisers like those in Mr. Szetela's roster is crucial. Small and mid-sized advertisers are the ones that propelled Google's search-ad growth during the last decade and they are also boosting Facebook's growth.

While Twitter has had some success in selling ads costing as high as $120,000 for a 24-hour period to brand names such as Coca-Cola Co., small businesses spend roughly the same amount as big brands in the $26 billion U.S. online-ad market, according to David Hallerman, an analyst at research firm eMarketer.

"Twitter has built an audience, but in order to achieve the scale and revenue that Google and Facebook are seeing it needs to show that marketing dollars spent on the site can perform well for mom and pops, not just big companies," said Jonathan Strauss, chief executive of Snowball Factory Inc., which tracks marketing campaigns on Facebook and Twitter.

Twitter's effort to woo small advertisers, begun in December, comes amid investment froth around the start-up. In low-level talks with potential buyers, representatives of Twitter have said it is worth several billion dollars more than the $4 billion valuation set during a financing round in December, people familiar with the matter have said. More recently, JP Morgan Chase & Co. has been interested in buying a stake in Twitter, people familiar with the matter said.

The attempt to harness small advertisers is also the latest move by Twitter to tap its base of more than 200 million registered users. The company last fall elevated then-operating chief Dick Costolo to CEO, replacing co-founder Evan Williams.
[TWITTER]

Mr. Costolo, a former Google executive, had been charged with turning Twitter's popularity into a full-fledged business and had started hiring ad sales directors and staff—including Adam Bain, who previously ran revenue efforts for websites owned by News Corp., to be president of global revenue at Twitter.

Overall, Twitter, which was created in 2006 and began working with advertisers less than a year ago, is expected to generate $150 million in ad revenue this year, up from $45 million in 2010, according to eMarketer.

The growth is expected to come in part from a self-service system later this year that will let more small businesses buy ads on Twitter, much like Google's AdWords program. Twitter expects prices for some ads to rise as advertisers look to target the same users.

In January, Mr. Bain began a campaign to enlist more smaller advertisers by letting the direct sales team, which now numbers around 35 people, contact businesses that had previously expressed interest in advertising in Twitter.

Mr. Bain said Twitter ads "can deliver value for any business, large or small, by giving them new ways to amplify their existing Twitter presence and accelerate awareness and conversations about their products."
Digits

* Twitter's Ads: Here's What Works

Twitter has more than 125 big brands and more than 100 small- and medium-sized advertisers on the site, a person familiar with the matter said. Several small advertisers said in interviews that their early experience with Twitter was promising and they expected to allocate part of their future ad budgets to the site.

Because many Twitter users access the site from mobile devices, the company eventually will let advertisers target users based on their location, at first based on their country or city, a spokesman said. The company, which has about 350 employees, has begun hiring ad sales staff in Japan and London.

Twitter charges advertisers for each time a user selects an ad. Twitter's ad formats include Promoted Tweets—advertisements that look like regular tweets—as well as Promoted Trends, currently utilized by big-name advertisers, which allows a big brand to show an ad on a list of hot topics on Twitter's home page. It also offers Promoted Accounts, where a marketer pays to have Twitter recommend that users "follow" the tweets of a particular account.

Not every early tester is convinced Twitter's ad program will be as effective as Google's AdWords. Stewart Langille, vice president of marketing at Mint.com, a unit of Intuit Inc. that helps people track their finances, said ads on Twitter in recent months helped the site find new potential customers but didn't cause many of them to sign up for a Mint.com account. He added that "it's very early" and the system could improve.

A Twitter spokesman said ads are "a work in progress."

This is a new approach for social networking sites. I feel like Twitter is something completely different and there are no direct competitors so it doesn't surprise me that their advertising structure is completely different as well. As with Myspace and Facebook, time with tell how long they will stay around.

Code Breakers Can Read Washington Ads

MARCH 7, 2011

Time: 2 hours
Wall Street Journal

By THOMAS CATAN

WASHINGTON—This city is different; you just have to look at the side of a bus to see that.

"WE DON'T MAKE UAVs," reads one of the bus ads here.

"I have no idea what UAV stands for," says Marc Silverman, 29, a chemical engineer. "Is it something to do with AIDS?"

Every day in the nation's capital, commuters and visitors stare at ads in subway cars, on buses or on mobile billboards, unable to figure out what they mean.

But that doesn't bother advertisers. The ads aren't meant for everybody. They're only for the tiny part of the traveling public that holds the federal purse strings.

The wooing used to be conducted mainly in private. Companies would try to press a card into a policy maker's hand or meet a program manager at industry events sponsored by trade publications like Government Executive or Government Computer News.

But as the competition for lucrative federal contracts has intensified, it has spilled into the public arena—leaving many people baffled.

In one radio ad, a company called Qinetic North America touts its "engineering and technical support, field services support, plus innovative solutions to help protect our war-fighters including tactical robots and controllers, vehicle armoring [and] gunshot localization systems."

Another company—"the leader in cloud-based federal financial management"—offers "GCE Solution, with standardized financial business processes built in, eliminates the need for customizations that drive up costs and drag down projects."

Many of the ads on WTOP-FM, Washington's news, traffic and weather radio station, target government procurement officers and program managers as they're stuck in the capital's notorious rush-hour traffic.

Mysterious acronyms give the ads the flavor of coded Cold War era shortwave radio broadcasts: ISR, F136, IPV6 and ICD-10.

For the record, those stand for: Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance programs; a type of jet engine; a protocol by which data are sent between computers on the Internet; and the tenth revision of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems.

"Agencies demand provider diversity on networks on WITS 3 and GSA Schedule 70," says one radio ad, set to dramatic music. "Level 3 delivers it!"

Washington marketers say the gobbledygook has a purpose. Companies targeting a specific group of government employees "can use the federal acronyms so that they're weeding out the waste," explains Ralph Renzi, director of federal sales at WTOP radio.

In this case, the waste is listeners who aren't in the market for a fighter jet engine, aerial refueling tanker or cyber-security suite.

WTOP has seen advertising by companies seeking government contracts rise by up to 15% this year to become its biggest money-earner.

The segment has become so lucrative for the station that, a few years back, it started Federal News Radio, "the only station targeting the federal executive."

A typical ad on its website reads: "Get DCAA Compliant! Check out ICAT today!"

Clicking on the ad reveals ICAT to be an "Indirect Cost Allocation Tool for Government Contractors using QuickBooks."

The advertising segment has grown fast enough to have caught the attention of Google. The online advertising giant recently opened an office in Washington to target such advertisers. It says its Washington ad business has more than doubled in a year.

Some Washington ads revel in their obscurantism. One billboard, at the Pentagon Metro station, read: "THOSE WITH A NEED TO KNOW, KNOW," followed by a symbol made up of a circle with a wide "V" underneath. The ad was for a company named Palantir, which makes software used by intelligence agencies.

Companies like Palantir want to trumpet the work they do for agencies, but often that work is classified. That tension results in some of Washington's most confounding advertisements.

"They baffle me, to be honest," says Angel Bennett, who handled some intelligence accounts before becoming director of marketing for Flir Systems, which makes infrared imaging systems. "Most of the time you can't even send out a press release about the contract you've won."

Many ads aim their message over the heads of ordinary commuters at program managers, congressmen or procurement officers. Sometimes they miss their mark.

Take, for example, a recent advertising campaign by Northrop Grumman. Over a picture of a bombed-out city neighborhood, its subway ad read: "By the time you've identified the threat, we've already taken it out of the picture." In the lower, right-hand corner, a single clue: ISR.

The ad sparked a rash of online discussion.

"I still don't even get what they mean," wrote one commenter under the name Gulliver. "Who is the "you"? And who is the "we"?…Can anyone make any sense out of the slogan?"

"We don't tell the whole story" in our ads, says Randy Belote, a Northrop Grumman spokesman. "We let the reader try to determine what's going on."

Ordinary citizens who are baffled by Washington's ads can take comfort in the fact that people targeted by these ads sometimes don't understand them, either.

"ISR? I'm not sure on that," says Allan Burman, a former administrator of the Office of Management and Budget's Office of Federal Procurement Policy.

What about WITS 3? "Is that a network exchange?" he asks. "I have no idea."

And how about UAV? "That's an unmanned aerial vehicle," he says, triumphantly.

That still doesn't explain the ad on the bus. It turns out to be for a company called Mission Essential Personnel, which provides translators and analysts for the U.S. defense and intelligence communities.

The company plastered its puzzling ads over 235 buses in the area, it says, to draw attention to its unspecified services for the government. "Obviously, you don't get everything on the side of the bus as it goes by at 35 mph," says Chris Taylor, the company's chief executive.

But he says the campaign helped get the company noticed around Washington.

"I got emails from friends saying: 'I almost got hit by an MEP bus!" he says.

This article was really interesting to me. I have never heard of advertisers specially excluding people, but for advertisers in Washington, that seems to be the case. I wonder if there is also the psychological aspect, where those who understand the ads feel more privelaged and therefore more likely to remember the advertisement.