I was riding the 5 train when I saw an ad above my seat for a company called Brex: “SeatGeek Controls Spending Like a Rock Star with Brex.” » These words have the attributes of a sentence but mean nothing together. I kept repeating them, as if I was focusing my eyes on an optical illusion and waiting for something to appear. Nothing.
Then I noticed other absurd advertisements on the subway. A banner for a company called Semgrep that reads “Big Number Go Down. Noiseless Security Code.” Another: “Every artist has a medium. GTM has clay.” Or Rippling and his crying man: “The software is not helpful? It’s SaaD.” You might think to yourself: Am I crazy?
You are not. Marketspeak took over MTA’s ad space this year. Business-to-business products, many of which have an AI bent and do (do?) things like “go to market” or “remove developer friction.” They are aimed at an audience of people with titles like “assistant chief” or “director of employee experience.” Wendy Liu, writer and former software engineer, calls this phenomenon, which has already invaded the Bay Area, the “B2B slop”. It goes without saying that most public transportation users are not technical executives or vice presidents of human resources. Advertisements, Liu writes, can attract a customer or two to this incredible niche area. But they’re also there to be there: “The economics of the tech industry are a bit abstract, more a matter of hope and optics than reality. »
The images that surround you on your lousy commute tend to predict distinct times: seeing something, saying something; COVID label; or the sad man who suffers from erectile dysfunction and has to turn away from his confused-looking girlfriend. Ours is becoming a tech-speak spill. “We’ve definitely seen an increase in the category over the last few years,” says Ginger Griffin, New York vice president of sales at Outfront Media, the company that handles advertising on the MTA, when I ask her about the ubiquity of these business-to-business ads. According to Outfront data, tech ads have grown 30% since last year and now account for 10% of ad spend. StreetEasy ads, actually quite clever, are being erased by AI start-ups with names like Clay and Delve. Our travel time is the definition of a captive audience. When you’re avoiding eye contact with everyone about to be transferred to Union Square or only half-listening to your audiobook, there’s basically only one place to look. As president of the company that previously managed MTA ads put it on: “The doors close and you are locked in.” (Sinister.)
Unsurprisingly, no one seems to like bizarre advertisements that may or may not lead to their job being eliminated at some point. Or human interaction. When Friend, a startup that sells a wearable AI device that listens to you and responds with written messages like “I’m here to bring vibes,” took over the entire subway system this fall, commuters began to deface advertisements and tear them off. (Phrases such as “AI is burning the world around you” and “AI is not your friend,” for example, were written on the ads.)
When I contacted Brex to try to understand what their ad meant, no one responded. (The same goes for a number of other companies running gibberish ads on the subway.) But Brex had an AI sales rep named Brexton who I could chat with. He told me that the company’s advertising “shows how SeatGeek effectively manages its expenses using the Brex platform.” When I asked about the rock star metaphor, Brexton said it was “meant to add a fun twist, emphasizing confidence and boldness in financial management rather than the literal spending habits of rock stars.” I was still confused, but at the risk of being called stupid by a robot, I just clicked. If only that was an option on the Q.