It pays to make your poster a ‘visual scandal’, as in this British example for FCO Univas. Subway cards If it falls to you to produce advertisements for the subway, it may help to know that the average rider in the New York subway will be exposed to your advertisement for 21 minutes, which is long enough to read quite a long message. Only 15 per cent of passengers carry anything to read. The other 85 per cent have nothing to do but read your copy. Trademarks are an anachronism In olden days, before people could read, manufacturers used trademarks to identify their brands. If you saw a tiger on a bottle of beer, you knew it was Tiger beer. Many companies, unaware that consumers are no longer illiterate, still use graphic symbols to identify their brands, and insist on them being displayed in their advertisements. They add to the gadgetry which clutters up layouts, and proclaim ‘this is only an advertisement’. Readership of the advertisement is reduced.