Amount of private advertising on Bloomington Transit buses could be decided at Dec. 17 meeting
Fewer advertisements will appear on Bloomington Transit’s bus fleet starting in 2025—if a policy change gets a green light at the final BT board meeting of the year, set for Dec. 17.
A change to the policy has been recommended by a two-member board committee made up of Don Griffin and Kent McDaniel. The revised policy was presented by BT general manager John McConnell at the board’s regular monthly meeting last week.
Key points of the proposal include limiting full advertising wraps in 2025 to 50 percent of the fleet, then reducing the fraction incrementally by the end of 2027 to 25 percent of BT’s buses. The BT fleet currently has about 50 buses.
Another key point of the proposed new policy would restrict any single advertiser to no more than three full wraps or six total ads. Buses less than two years old would not be eligible for any ads.
The revisions to the policy might not be enough to win the support of BT board member Doug Horn.
Horn had pushed the topic forward at the board’s September meeting. At the time, Horn’s already negative view towards bus advertising had been aggravated by a description he’d seen calling a BT bus “the Ken Nunn bus.”
Horn is concerned not just that the advertising on the buses dilutes BT’s brand—to the point of making the vehicles unrecognizable as Bloomington’s public buses. He also wants BT buses to carry the message more clearly that they are Bloomington Transit vehicles.
Horn put it like this at last Tuesday’s board meeting: “I would hope, in addition to advertising our corporation, that we blossom into advertising our product and that we advertise our community.”
Horn continued, “I think it totally appropriate, to take, as an example, landmarks within the county and include them with our bus identity—rather than legal firms, apartment communities, chicken sandwiches, and forgive me if I’ve missed anybody.”
Horn said, “We are not in the business of advertising. We are in the business of developing public transportation.”
The counterpoint to Horn was provided by board member Kent McDaniel, based on the amount of revenue that the advertising generates.
The current contract with Mesmerize calls for a 55-percent commission on the bus advertising it sells. BT’s contract with Mesmerize Media, the company that sells the ads, runs through the end of this year.
For 2025, BT’s spending plan calls for $175,000 in advertising revenue, which is a conservative number. At last Tuesday’s meeting, Connell indicated that projected revenue in 2025 under the new policy would be $268,000.
McDaniel said, “I think $268,000 a year is great. That’s more than a quarter of a million dollars.” Chiming in with support for the idea of maintaining a revenue stream from advertising was BT board member Nancy Obermeyer, who said, “Yeah, that’s not chump change.”
BT’s basic operating budget for 2025, not including capital expenses, is about $10.5 million.
Connell noted that the revised policy would set up the board in 2027, to end all bus advertising, if that were the will of the board. That’s when the next 3-year contract with Mesmerize (which is expected to be approved in December) would end.
Connell noted that ending all advertising now, at the end of 2024, would not only mean an elimination of advertising revenue starting in 2025. It would mean having to work out settlements with seven different advertisers that are currently under contract with Mesmerize.
BT board chair James McLary summarized what the committee had tried to do as “to strike a happy medium.” McLary said they were trying to make sure BT did not wind up in litigation with Mesmerize or the advertisers, at the same time putting BT on a timeline to decrease the amount of bus advertising.
Horn responded to the description of $268,000 by Obermeyer as “not chump change.” He said, “I would propose that if we begin to try to build a successful image, developing ridership, developing community support, etcetera, we will spend more than $268,000.”
Horn concluded, “We’ve got an uphill fight now, because all we are is a ‘wrapped bus company’ that has little to do with the community.”
