The removal of Pleasure Beach advertising from Blackpool’s Flexity2 trams is continuing to make rapid progress, with two more trams appearing at the end of last week with new adverts in place of those for the theme park which they had carried for the last two years. The trams affected are 014 and 015, and unfortunately both now sport in-house advertising in the absence of any new commercial contracts.
014 has recently shed its adverts for the Pleasure Beach itself, featuring images of the famous ‘Big One’ rollercoaster on both sides, in favour of bright red posters advertising the chance to advertise on a Blackpool tram! This also seems to highlight the apparent shortage of new sponsors coming forward to take the place of the disapearing Pleasure Beach branding once carried by several of the fleet.
Meanwhile, 015 has also lost its advertising for the Nickelodeon Land attraction and these have been replaced by a new black design promoting Blackpool Transport’s own range of ‘1tickets’. This is effectively today’s equivalent of the old Travelcards, and the new advert is appropriate in co-inciding with the re-launch of Balloon 701 whose red and white livery was originally used as a background for tasteful Travelcard advert banners. Both of the Flexity trams carry these new slogans on the central side panels and on the roof sides, with no intrustive window vinyls employed.
This leaves very few traces of branding on the trams for the Pleasure Beach and its associated attractions, although 013 continues to promote the Ripley’s ‘Believe it or Not’ centre on the promenade and 005 retains its adverts for the Big Blue Hotel – albeit only on one side – although for how much longer these remain in situ remains to be seen.
If you've ever wanted to advertise on a Blackpool tram, a read of the side panels of Flexity 014 should tell you all that you need to know! The tram shows off its striking new slogans at North Pier in this sunny shot.
A close-up view of 014's centre section showing off its vibrant new advert posters to full effect.
Also new for September 2014 is Flexity 015 advertising the Blackpool Transport 1tickets.
A close look at the centre adverts extolling the virtues of buying a day ticket to ride on Blackpool Transport's trams and buses. (All photos by Paul Derrick)
All these adverts on trams make.and always have done make the fleet look cheap and tacky.either use the new colours or traditional green and cream but not adverts.
In that case just be glad that so far there has only been one all-over advert Flexity, personally I had expected more to have appeared by now! I think this style of advert quite suits the new fleet livery but each to their own.
These adverts do suit the trams well. I didn’t like it when none of them had ads – it gives them a bit of character!
Like them on not, the revenue from adverts is a vital extra revenue stream for the company. From figures suggested, the overall ad is roughly the same as adding 5p to the fare of every passenger carried on that vehicle!
Personally, I think the roofline adverts are unobtrusive and in the case of the dwindling gold based pleasure beach schemes, quite stylish as well as offering some uniformity when there were 6 of them at their peak, they outnumbered plain trams!
I have to agree with your comment Andrew but as someone who is into Blackpool heritage.or what’s left of it.I look at the beautiful buildings built by craftsmen.masons and brickies and then painted over at a later date in garish colours and adverts.rather much the same as designing a beautiful sleek mode of transport and then having it all destroyed by some uneducated Moran in an advertising office reaping his/her sales commission.however.it will appeal to some who see it as an artistic piece of art/graffiti.