Why don't we just put adverts on Boris bikes?

With the news a little while ago that Barclays are pulling out from  sponsorship of the cycle hire scheme (I assume because everyone called them 'Boris bikes' rather than 'Barclays bikes') I was thinking about who, if anyone, should replace them?

I always thought it was a bit odd that Barclays should want to spend £50m (£25m as it turns out) on advertising that does little more than mention their brand name. I'm aware that universally recognised brands sponsor big events so I'll defer to their marketing teams' expertise on that. It's about associating yourself with something cool rather than brand awareness specifically but one of the goals surely has to be having people say the word 'Barclays' more often.

But as far as replacing Barclays is concerned, the paradox is that any company with enough money to sponsor the entire scheme surely already has enough brand awareness to render sponsorship a little redundant, particularly if they're only ever going to be known as 'Boris bikes'.

So were talking in the office and wondered why it has to be only one company sponsoring the bikes?

There are around 8,000 Boris bikes in London and about 750 docking stations. Why not allow companies to buy advertising space on a limited number of them the way they do with buses? There are about 7,500 London buses (all figures Wikipedia) so while the logistics of changing the advert at the back of each bike might demand some sort of minimum order (say 500 bikes for 1 month) it should surely be workable. TfL would also have the location data for each bike (or at least the start and end point of every journey) making ad tracking research easy as well.

I was really sceptical of the Boris bikes originally but now quite like them as a useful transport option of last resort. When tubes and trains aren't running £3 for a cycle is a lot cheaper than a taxi. It's obviously a blow that the scheme will lose the money from Barclays but hopefully it'll continue in some form or another.