Cingular wireless service has launched a $20 million ad campaign as it enters New York's already saturated market. Subway ads, billboards, bus kiosks, and even entire buses display the trendy orange anthropomorphic logo.

In the West 4th street station, among several, was one that showed the little Cingular logo in the corner and a phone. The text read:

Studio apartment: $2000
Dinner for two: $425
Pre-school: $13,000
Cingular wireless service: $29.99

Somebody went at it with a big black magic marker and printed the text underneath the last line:
FREEDOM FROM CORPORATE RULE: PRICELESS

Unfortunately, it didn't last more than a week by the time I went by with a digital camera, and they replaced the ad altogether with a different concept. Perhaps they realized the power of Mastercard's campaign?
Funny.