Brands of Britain, nay brands of the world! How would you like to wriggle your way onto London's famous tube map?
We're building a brand new cable car across the Thames, opening sometime next year, and we'd love your company to be a big part of it. Hell why not? We painted the streets of London blue for Barclays, so now we'd like your slap your name and branding all over Docklands' latest tourist attraction. Give us the cash up front, and we promise to call it the Your Name Here Cable Car, running from North Greenwich Your Name Here to Royal Victoria Your Name Here.
A commercial partner would receive a range of unique high-visibility opportunities for their brand including:
It's one step further than TfL has ever dared to go before, marketing-wise. But these are difficult economic times. We couldn't afford to hang cables across the Thames with public money, not on a commercially unviable route, so your cash will be absolutely essential in bringing this amazing project to fruition.
In future, when Londoners talk of the new cross-river connection, your name will spring to their lips. When tourists come to Docklands for a breathtaking ride, your branding will smother all their photos. And every time anyone picks up a tube map, your chosen buzzwords will burrow into their subconscious out of the corner of their eye. No matter that your company has bugger all to do with aerial sightseeing - we'll forge that link and make it stick.
A formal tender document setting out the full range of rights on offer is now available to interested parties, with the deadline for submissions in mid-July. We'll be announcing the name of the winning company later this year, so you need to send in your expressions of interest fast. To inspire you, here are a few suggestions we've received already.
McDonalds: They've got the hard cash, so surely nothing can stop this becoming the McCableCar from North McGreenwich to Royal McVictoria Vodafone: Because it would be fantastic, brand-wise, to rename North Greenwich station Vodafone, for the O2 The Liberal Democrats: In an attempt to detoxify their party's image, they'd like to inaugurate the Vince Cable Car Wonga: With so much of East London's population in serious need of extortionate loansharkery, let's rebrand this The Wonga Dangleway Some faceless insurance company you've never heard of: Odds-on favourite Tesco: In a brainstorming chamber somewhere in Cheshunt, a young copywriter has already tagged this the Tesco Express Groupon: Come ride Groupon's Gondolas (on selected dates, all subscribers enjoy 90% off the £3.50 single fare) David Beckham: In a rather presumptuous lickspittle gesture, David wants to rename the northern station Royal Victoria Beckham Barclays: Because it's always bloody Barclays, isn't it? Boris Johnson: If he can get it open before the Mayoral Elections, he'd pay to get this known as Boris Crossing BP: In a desperate attempt to boost their eco-credentials, welcome to the BP GreenLink Microsoft: Would like to rename the northern station Microsoft Office, and the DLR station nextdoor Microsoft ExCel Sky Television: It'll be the London SkyLine, I bet you White Elephant: If enough of the public gang up together, they can surely find enough donations to designate this the White Elephant cable car, from Tumbleweed to Nowhere