What Do Emirates and the Joint Strike Fighter Have in Common?

Living in DC is in many ways a strange experience, that’s unlike any other in the U.S.

Many people can say that about their locales. Certainly there’s nothing like the Manhattan experience. But DC is different in its own way.

When you ride the metro, the ads you see aren’t predominantly for consumer products. They’re for jet fighters.

The most expensive subway ads are in the Pentagon station and inside Capital South. They’re targeting very expensive ads to very narrow audiences: Defense Department procurement officers, and Congressional staff on just the right committee.

My all-time favorite was for defense contractors who wanted duplicate contracts to produce parts for the Joint Strike Fighter, arguing that even though Lockheed Martin was selected to build it, the project is so important that you want to fund other companies to work on it too.

With that in mind, reader James R. sends me a photo he took of an ad at the Federal Center Southwest metro stop:

It’s not an ad to fly Emirates. It’s an Emirates ad not to take administrative action to limit the airlines’ flying to the U.S.

DC is so weird…

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Not much of a Metro rider, but always got a kick out of seeing advertisements for the newest missile, or missile defense, system. The underground mall in Crystal City has tons of billboard signs for top secret clearance jobs…won’t see that in NYC…

  2. Also bought banner ads with the same text on the front page of washingtonpost.com.

  3. I also noticed in DC that the most visible free newspaper were China Daily (english edition).

  4. @John, are you sure you’re not thinking of Epoch Times? Also I think probably the Express news flyer/magazine is more prolific (if you ride the metro).

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