Metro Madrid Advertising

This ad is from 2006.

The Madrid Metro is responsible for some of the best TV commercials (‘anuncios’) shown in Spain. But I’ve said this before.

Alonso Pimps For Banco Santander

Lewis Hamilton’s best mate Fernando Alonso advertising a special monthly account for Banco Santander.

Fernando Alonso Marketing

This cardboard cut-out stands outside one of their branches in Nuevos Ministerios.

Subway Madrid – Life From Underground

Advertising for the Madrid Metro is some of the most creative in the world. This television ad is being used currently. Some of the buildings and places you see are instantly recognisable to anyone who knows the city.

Non-Funky New Billboards

Loads of new advertising billboards with large screens have started popping up around the city. They’re rectangular in shape and range in size from 3×2 metres to 12×4m, and there’s a strip version at 4×1m. The authorities have authorised a company called Clear Channel to build 899 of the things in total and run them for ten years, for a price of 160 million euroweenies.

Naturally, the socialists on the council have objected, with the IU claiming they will impede pedestrians and create distractions for drivers. It’s what PJ O’Rourke calls the Liberal Safety Nazi tendency, whereby human beings are regarded as nothing less than incompetent idiots who need to be told how to live by interfering busybodies from the government. Oh my God! It’s a big screen with an ad on it! Shit! I just crashed my car into the monumental fountain in the middle of the fucking road!

The PSOE are on stronger grounds with their objections citing various procedural problems with authorisation. Apparently, approval for this project was whipped through very quickly and certain executives at Clear Channel have strong connections with the ruling party of the Madrid council (the Partido Popular). Nonetheless, the public are generally in favour, with the biggest complaint being that the screens are old fashioned. With the sort of technology available these days they could have at least gone digital.

The billboards have been dubbed pantallazos, which sort of translates as ‘big screens’. A pantalla is a screen, a pantallazo a bigger version, get it? The Spanish add ‘azo’ at the end of nouns to make things ‘bigger’ or ‘greater’, e.g. mi coche = my car – mi cochazo = my super great car with spoilers and go faster stripes. ¡Gol! = Goal! – ¡Golazo! = Stevie G thirty-yard screamer into top corner.

Glorieta de Bilbao

Picture of Glorieta de Bilbao in Madrid with a massive billboard-style advertisement for Ray-Ban glasses.

Madrid Advertising

Detail from a poster close to Bilbao metro station in Madrid. They really like the big poster / billboard (20m x 10m and larger) advertising in this city.