Seattle Transit Advertising
The Ticket to Your Target Audience
Seattle’s mass transit environment has proven to be an effective outlet for brands to reach and engage customers throughout their day. But it’s not just the media of bus wraps or station dominations that advertisers should be thinking about — it’s the Emerald City’s unique audience base that can be leveraged.
According to CBRE’s Tech Talent Scorecards Report, Seattle is the nation’s most educated market, with 62.1 percent of all residents over the age of 25 possessing at least a bachelor’s degree. Targeting highly-educated markets allows advertisers to focus on groups with high purchasing power; Seattle is no exception, and recently ranked second in the US in median income of married couples.
But it’s not just that Seattleites make expendable income, it’s how they make it that renders the city a unique advertising opportunity. Seattle plays a central role in America’s tech industry as the US’s second-biggest tech market, employing over 130,000 tech workers. There are two reasons to take this fact seriously.
1. The most obvious benefit of targeting a tech-industry hub is that tech employees are a well-paid, trend-setting base of consumers. In Seattle, the average wage of a tech employee reached over $110,000, putting them in the top 10% of earners in America. It is also important to consider the indirect results of exposing tech employees to your brand. As our marketplace becomes increasingly tech-centric, companies like Amazon and Microsoft wield growing power over consumer habits; introduce an employee in Amazon’s product research department to your brand, and you’ve taken a long leap closer to the market at large.
2. The presence of big nationally-relevant corporations also allows B2B advertisers to leverage Seattle transit advertising to cultivate a high return on their ad spend. Immersing commuters in your business-oriented product or service offers the potential of massive returns. Expose employees of America’s largest corporations to your product, and you open up a feedback loop of word of mouth within professional circles.
Seattle’s buses are ridden daily by the city’s biggest contingent of professionals, widely appreciated, and consistently well-funded. In a 2017 study, 36.8 percent of commutes to the Seattle downtown area took place on buses — by far the highest percentage of any category. The buses perform at a very high level and receive more per-capita funding than any other American bus system. These buses capture the city’s most desirable audiences and can be counted on to deliver positive experiences.
As a hub of professionally-active transit riders, and a more-affordable tech center on the West Coast, Seattle is a playground to B2B and B2C advertisers alike. Transit advertising is the way to captivate this city — and with an 8 percent rise in King County Metro bus ridership over the last decade, as well as another record-breaking year for Sound Transit’s rail travel, incentives to advertise on Seattle’s transit properties will only continue to grow.
