Madrid's Public Transit, Brought to You by Megacorporations

For rent: one subway system. That seems to be the approach of Madrid Metro, which is taking public transit advertising to unprecedented levels. Until the end of October, users of Madrid Metro’s map app (downloaded 1.2 million times so far) will find their plan peppered with the logo of a supermarket chain. Thanks to a deal with French retail giant Carrefour—continental Europe’s answer to Walmart—logos of the megachain will appear wherever there’s one near a Metro station. The idea is to channel passengers in need of groceries straight off of trains and into nearby markets. There are over 100 stores on the map, making Madrid’s Metro map app look like it’s broken out with a serious case of Carrefour acne.

For Madrid’s Metro, this is just the icing on the cake. As things stand already, the network is among the world’s most advertising-saturated. Last summer, the station beneath Puerta del Sol, Madrid’s Times Square, was rechristened Vodafone Sol in a deal with the British mobile-phone company of the same name. (This followed a period when the station’s signs were altered in honor of a Samsung phone to read “Estacion Sol Galaxy Note.") The entire subway line on which Sol lies had also been renamed Line 2 Vodafone for a time. The cost to Vodafone of changing names on all maps and signs for a three-year period: a reasonable-sounding €3 million ($3.8 million).