Dallas Blog

DART opted not to run this ad, which you can click to enlarge. The ad, I mean. Wha?

Saw a "story" in the no-relation New York Observer this morning concerning the "yanking" of a "racy" movie ad from the side of Dallas Area Rapid Transit buses, and I thought it might be a good idea to ask DART spokesman Morgan Lyons the ol' what-the-what. Dutifully, he researched the back story and returned with the full story: No, sorry, the ads for the movie The Last International Playboy weren't pulled, he says, because they never ran.

Turns out, back in March, the contractor (Titan) that handles bus-side advertising for DART and most of your larger transit authorities U.S.-wide, approached DART about running the panty-ful ad featuring the plentiful Lydia Hearst in repose. "And we rejected it," Lyons says, simple as that. Why come?

"Bus-side advertising is different than advertising in the Observer," he says. "Folks might be surprised to see that ad on a bus, but they might be disappointed if they didn't" see it in the paper version of Unfair Park. "You know what you're getting when you pick up the Observer or even Quick. But bus ads are a little more pervasive, which is why they can be so effective. They can be hard to avoid." So DART avoided any complaints by avoiding the ad. And, yes, we all remember the Family Place bus ad controversy.