What if the best advertising showcase was right along your daily route?
Transport advertising in Madrid has become one of the most effective and versatile channels within the city’s out-of-home (OOH) media landscape, standing out for its high brand recall.
This effectiveness is largely due to the expansion of digital screens and poster circuits, installed throughout the city’s main transport hubs.
What’s the secret to its success?
It’s not just the strategic coverage in high-traffic locations—it’s also the creative innovations that turn physical space into a high-impact advertising platform. The power of mobile-style digital creativity, now in a real and urban environment.
Transport hubs: the perfect set for brands
Just like a blockbuster movie premiere, the success of an advertising campaign depends on several key elements: reaching a wide and diverse audience, being displayed in strategically chosen “theatres” — those high-traffic, high-visibility locations — and showcasing visual creativity as striking as a good trailer.
In this context, Madrid’s transport hubs become a true set for brands, where every element works together to capture the audience’s attention.
OOH advertising in Madrid has evolved into a blend of outdoor and indoor formats, combining both digital and traditional solutions.
Today, ads are no longer limited to classic poster displays on public transport—they also appear on large-format LED screens placed in key areas such as bus bays, escalators, and entrances to Metro and Cercanías train stations.
These high-traffic, high-flow spaces are real urban showcases where brands can truly shine. All that’s needed is the creativity, strong visuals, and sharp messaging from creative agencies to leave a mark and drive more visits, more purchases, or more customers. In the end, that’s what every brand is aiming for.
Who sees these ads? Profile of the Madrid public transport user
Clece OOH exclusively manages the advertising media in three of these key hubs: Plaza de Castilla, Príncipe Pío, and Avenida de América.
This allows us to collect thousands of data points daily, thanks to integrated measurement systems in the digital poster circuit that analyze the constant flow of commuters. This Big Data reveals a diverse and highly connected user profile.
- Age and activity: Most users are between 18 and 45 years old—a young adult audience in active stages of work or study.
- Frequency and habits: Many of them pass through these hubs multiple times a day, ensuring high ad repetition and brand recall. Waiting times range from 5 to 15 minutes, making the posters in the bus bays especially effective.
- Level of attention: These moments of waiting or movement naturally encourage people to observe their surroundings, which boosts the impact of visual messaging.
- Sociodemographic diversity: These hubs attract a wide mix of users: students, professionals, families, and tourists. Different times of day and week show higher traffic from some groups than others, allowing campaigns to target specific audiences accordingly.
Segmentation: The key to reaching the right audience
As we’ve seen, the poster circuits allow for precise geographical and time-based segmentation. At Clece OOH, we help brands plan campaigns adapted to the user profiles of each hub, route, and time slot.
For example, during work hours, ads can target professionals, while in the evenings and on weekends, the focus can shift to leisure, dining, or cultural events. This segmentation capability means each screen or poster can reach its target audience with greater impact than mobile ads.
How is attention on mobile different from attention during commutes?
There’s no doubt that mobile advertising has many weaknesses: oversaturation, fast scrolling, constant app-switching, notifications, and video overload… Ads are often seen as intrusive and annoying.
In contrast, commuting in Madrid’s public transport offers a different setting—moments of pause and focus. People are in an urban environment, more visually receptive and with fewer competing stimuli.
Here, digital posters and screens blend naturally into the surroundings, especially where users make mandatory stops: entrances, escalators, lobbies, and bus bays.
And they do so while offering high creativity and prolonged exposure.
This combination—frequency, repetition, high impact, and brand recall—makes the poster circuits in Madrid’s transport system a powerful and cost-effective tool for awareness and conversion campaigns.
Successful advertising cases in Madrid’s transport system
At Clece OOH, we’ve led some standout OOH campaigns in Madrid:
- 3D advertising for the movie “Morbius.” A spectacular execution that turned poster displays into an immersive cinema experience. Using visual innovation, the posters showed flocks of bats suddenly appearing in front of commuters.
- Mitsubishi Electric and its “safe space with air purifier.” In 2021, coinciding with their donation of purifiers to prevent the spread of COVID, this campaign humanized the brand through a socially valuable gesture, visible at the Plaza de Castilla hub.
- Avlo Renfe. With fares from €7, the poster campaign attracted thousands of summer travelers. Its presence in high-traffic areas ensured great visibility and an immediate response.
- Restaurant and store promotions near transport hubs. These clearly show how proximity translates into conversions.
- Concerts and cultural events. The spectacular formats in Príncipe Pío’s lobby have often displayed ads for the Teatro de la Zarzuela. This hub, near Madrid Río and the Gran Teatro CaixaBank Príncipe Pío, is ideal for promoting the capital’s cultural and entertainment experiences.
- Vacation plans, flights, and long-distance train trips. With aspirational and timely messages targeting people as they plan their journeys.
