George Carrano at Phototexts - M.T.A. Turns Deal Maker In Promoting Metrocards

June 5, 1997, Thursday, Late Edition - Final
Correction Appended

SECTION: Section B; Page 9; Column 1; Metropolitan Desk

LENGTH: 740 words

HEADLINE: M.T.A. Turns Deal Maker In Promoting Metrocards

BYLINE: By DAVID M. HALBFINGER

BODY:
When the Mets play the Yankees later this month in New York's first regular-season interleague baseball games, Yankee Stadium will be the scene of another first: advertisements on the back of Metrocards.

Modell's, the sporting goods company, is paying the Metropolitan Transportation Authority more than $100,000 to place its logo on more than 50,000 Metrocards that will be handed out free to those attending the first game between the teams, on June 16. An additional 200,000 of the logo-bearing cards will be sold, in $15 denominations, at the 2,000 convenience and retail stores that sell Metrocards across the city. The promotion is the first in a series meant to generate ad revenue, encourage use of the cards and persuade consumers to buy the cards outside subway stations. In late summer, the M.T.A. is expected to unveil a combination Metrocard and prepaid telephone calling card under a deal being negotiated with M.C.I. Communications, the phone carrier. M.C.I. would distribute the cards. Other promotional ideas could involve the United States Open golf tournament, Madison Square Garden, and a major soft-drink bottling company, which would sell the cards at vending machines, M.T.A. officials said.

Modell's sponsorship of the "First Subway Series Metrocard" plays off nostalgia for the days of crosstown World Series match-ups between the Yankees and the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. The Yankees edged the Dodgers in seven games in the subway series of 1956, the city's last.

The promotional deal was made in March, said Jack Perlman, a marketing consultant to both Modell's and the M.T.A. Since then, the Mets have put together a better record than the world champion Yankees -- generating considerable interest in the three-game series.

Anyone attending the June 16 game will receive a Metrocard worth $1.50, a single subway or bus fare. One person, chosen at random, will get a card worth $780 -- enough to ride to and from work, five days a week, for a year. And Modell's will offer a 15 percent discount on store merchandise to customers with the cards for a month.

The subway series-themed cards will not be available at token booths.

George Carrano, senior vice president of New York City Transit, a division of the M.T.A., who oversees distribution of Metrocards, said the deal with Modell's is the first of several "strategic alliances" being planned to "move more of our sales transactions from the station booth to stores, out of the system."

Doing so, he said, shortens lines at token booths and makes purchasing Metrocards easier for senior citizens and those who ride buses with routes far from the subway system.

It also saves the M.T.A. thousands of dollars in promotional expenses. Modell's is spending $500,000 for newspaper and radio advertisements, on top of $25,000 to print the cards and more than $75,000 for the fares to be given away.

Mr. Carrano and other people familiar with the Metrocard program said other similarly themed, commercially sponsored fare cards are being discussed, such as a United States Open card bearing a picture of the late tennis great Arthur Ashe, and a New York Knicks Metrocard that might be given to any fan purchasing a ticket to a basketball game.

First, however, the authority plans to introduce a combination Metrocard and prepaid calling card. M.C.I. is concluding a deal for a test printing of 400,000 cards to be sold, beginning in late summer, through M.C.I.'s normal distribution channels, including Kmart stores and places frequented by tourists visiting New York, who are heavy buyers of calling cards.

"We're leveraging their distribution to get the card out," Mr. Carrano said. M.C.I. also will pay a fee to the M.T.A., he said, although the relationship is not exclusive: "We're also negotiating with AT&T," he added.

The M.T.A. is also in talks with a major soft-drink bottler about adapting its vending machines in the metropolitan area to sell Metrocards in addition to cans of soda, Mr. Carrano said, adding that the bottling company would pay for the investment.

Officials at the M.T.A. also plan to hire an outside agency to find companies interested in turning Metrocards into mini-billboards, in pure advertising deals. Alicia Martinez, director of marketing at the M.T.A., said estimates of the annual revenue from ads on Metrocards have run from the hundreds of thousands of dollars to $2 million a year.

CORRECTION-DATE: June 9, 1997, Monday

CORRECTION:
Because of an editing error, an article on Thursday about placing advertisements on New York transit Metrocards misidentified a sporting event that is under consideration for such a promotion. It is the United States Open tennis tournament, not a golf tournament.

GRAPHIC: Photo: Metrocards will be getting a new face this month, in a deal with Modell's based on Mets-Yankees games.

LOAD-DATE: June 5, 1997