MTA
tap-to-pay transit campaign
New York City has one of the most visually saturated transit systems in the world. When American Express tasked OnBrand — their in-house agency — with increasing card usage for everyday transit spending, the challenge wasn't just visibility. It was relevance. We needed to earn attention from commuters who've learned to tune everything out.
I led the design of a campaign built around unexpected portraits of real New York commuter personas — people with actual lives, routines, and reasons to tap. The creative direction leaned into specificity over polish: these weren't aspirational lifestyle shots, they were slices of city life that felt true. Messaging was crafted around rider behavior data, so the copy landed like something the audience would think, not something a brand would say.
The campaign deployed across 1,900+ pieces of creative throughout MTA stations — turnstiles, train cars, above-ground placements — spanning the full arc of a commute. It earned a Silver at the FCS Portfolio Awards 2025 for Advertising OOH Campaign, but the real measure was how well it fit into the city it was designed for.
