American Guerrilla Marketing
Nationwide serivce
Media planning, media buying, billboard advertising, & guerrilla marketing
TriMet transit advertising across 5 MAX lines, 97 stations, and 100,000+ daily boardings — combined with street-level guerrilla snipes and sidewalk decals that surround riders before they ever board.
500+ Campaigns Executed
30+ U.S. Markets
Direct Execution — No Brokers
Geo-Tagged Proof of Install
Portland MAX Light Rail advertising puts your brand in front of one of the most educated, brand-engaged urban audiences in the Pacific Northwest. American Guerrilla Marketing has run transit-adjacent campaigns across 30+ U.S. markets and 500+ total campaigns — combining officially placed TriMet transit ads with street-level guerrilla tactics that intercept riders before they reach the platform. If you want to advertise on Portland MAX, you’ve come to the right place.
MAX Stations
Lines (Red, Blue, Green, Orange, Yellow)
Daily Boardings
System Length
AGM Campaigns
Get a free Portland MAX advertising media plan from American Guerrilla Marketing. We cover official TriMet transit placements, street-level snipes, sidewalk decals, and full-campaign strategy — all in one.
TriMet’s MAX Light Rail is the spine of Portland’s public transit network. The system connects Portland International Airport, downtown Portland, the Pearl District, Lloyd District, Nike’s Beaverton campus, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland State University, and suburban communities from Hillsboro to Clackamas. MAX riders skew toward higher-income, college-educated urbanites who commute regularly — exactly the audience brands in tech, health, food & beverage, streaming, and fashion want to reach.
Unlike a billboard seen at 60mph, transit advertising on Portland MAX means captive dwell time. Riders stand on platforms for 2–8 minutes and ride trains for 10–40 minutes. They have nothing to do but look. Interior car cards and station posters get real read time, which means your brand story can be nuanced, QR code–enabled, and genuinely persuasive.
Portland rail advertising is also uniquely guerrilla-friendly. Because MAX runs at street level through much of central Portland — NW 10th & Couch, SW Morrison, the Steel Bridge, downtown transit mall — there are abundant opportunities to place snipe posters and sidewalk decals within 100 feet of station entrances. This lets campaigns create a “surround sound” effect: a rider encounters your brand on a light post before they reach the platform, again on the station shelter, and again inside the train.
TriMet’s advertising partner, Intersection, offers a full suite of Portland MAX transit advertising formats. American Guerrilla Marketing helps clients plan, design, and execute purchases across these formats — while layering in unauthorized and semi-authorized street-level placements that extend campaign reach beyond the fare gates.
11″ × 17″ | 11″ × 28″ | 22″ × 28″
Overhead and side-panel placements inside MAX trains. Maximum dwell time — riders stare at these for 10–40 minutes per trip. Ideal for QR code campaigns, brand storytelling, event announcements, and direct response.
24″ × 36″ | 30″ × 40″ | 4-sheet
Platform and shelter-mounted posters at key MAX stations. High-frequency exposure for commuters who use the same station daily. Best for brand awareness and local event promotion.
Full or partial vehicle wrap
A fully wrapped MAX train is a rolling billboard crossing the entire city. The Red Line alone travels from PDX Airport through downtown to Beaverton — massive route coverage. Premium format, limited availability.
30″ × 144″ (King) | 30″ × 88″ (Queen)
Large-format exterior side panels on MAX trains. Highly visible to pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers as the train moves through street-level corridors in central Portland.
Multi-format takeover
Full ownership of every ad surface at a key MAX station for 30 days. Pillars, overhead panels, shelter walls, platform pylons. Used by major product launches and entertainment campaigns for immersive brand environments.
Variable sizing, dynamic content
Digital screens at select high-traffic MAX stations showing rotating creative with near-real-time content updates. Useful for day-parting, event countdowns, and contextual messaging (weather triggers, game days, etc.).
Various sizes, backlit panels
Extend your MAX campaign to TriMet bus shelters for network-wide coverage. Backlit panels near MAX stations create visual continuity between street-level and platform placements.
Train + Platform combo
Combined interior + exterior train purchase, timed with a station poster or domination buy. Full-funnel transit experience: riders see your exterior wrap boarding, interior cards riding, and posters exiting.
Paid transit media gets you inside the fare gates. American Guerrilla Marketing gets you everywhere else. Our street-level execution creates a “surround sound” brand environment that intercepts MAX riders at every touchpoint on the way to the train.
Riders don’t appear at the platform from nowhere. They walk from coffee shops, apartments, offices, and parking structures. We place branded touch points along that entire path:
The result: by the time a rider boards a MAX train and sees your interior card, they’ve already seen your brand 2–3 times at street level. Frequency drives recall. Recall drives action.
Every guerrilla placement we execute comes with geo-tagged photography
taken at time of installation. You receive a proof-of-install report with photo, GPS coordinates, timestamp, and placement description within 24 hours of deployment. This is what separates AGM from a typical media buyer — we execute, document, and prove it.
Portland MAX riders are not a generic transit audience. Knowing who’s on the train shapes your creative strategy and format selection:
For most consumer brand campaigns, the Blue and Red lines offer the highest-value audiences. For reach and frequency, a system-wide interior card buy covers all demographic segments simultaneously.
How does TriMet MAX transit advertising compare to other Portland outdoor advertising options?
American Guerrilla Marketing has been executing transit-adjacent and guerrilla campaigns for over 10 years. We are not a media broker or a reseller — we are a direct-execution agency with boots on the ground in Portland and 30+ other U.S. markets.
Intersection is TriMet’s authorized advertising partner. American Guerrilla Marketing can work alongside Intersection placements to add guerrilla street-level elements, or help clients navigate the Intersection planning process as a campaign partner.
Official transit placements typically require 2–4 weeks lead time for art approval and production. Guerrilla snipe and decal campaigns can be deployed within 48–72 hours of final art approval for smaller deployments.
It depends on the placement type. Sidewalk decals require city permits in Portland. Snipe posters on private property require owner permission; on public infrastructure, they are unpermitted placements typical of guerrilla advertising. AGM advises clients on risk levels and executes with awareness of local enforcement patterns.
Interior car cards are ideal for QR — riders have their phones out and dwell time to scan. Digital displays can show QR codes but scan rates are lower. For street-level, snipe posters at eye level within 5 feet of pedestrian traffic generate the best QR scan rates.
Yes. Line-specific interior card buys are available. The Red Line (airport), Blue Line (tech corridor), and Orange Line (South Portland) are the most commonly targeted for specific demographic campaigns.
Pioneer Courthouse Square, PDX Airport, Lloyd District, Goose Hollow, and Gateway TC represent the highest-value Portland MAX stations for advertising. Pioneer Courthouse Square delivers the broadest downtown reach across all five lines. PDX Airport captures high-income business travelers on the Red Line. Lloyd District spikes during Trail Blazers and Timbers events at Moda Center and Providence Park. Goose Hollow serves the OHSU and Portland State University audience. AGM evaluates station ridership data and demographic profiles to build the most efficient station mix for each Portland MAX Light Rail advertising campaign.
The Blue Line runs directly through the Beaverton and Hillsboro corridor, passing Nike World Headquarters near the Washington Square area and serving Intel’s Ronler Acres campus at the Hawthorn Farm and Quatama stations. Portland MAX advertising on the Blue Line interior car cards delivers sustained exposure to the same Nike and Intel employees commuting daily, building frequency that digital advertising cannot replicate. AGM targets this corridor with Blue Line-specific interior car card campaigns and platform posters at Beaverton TC, where the Blue and Red lines converge and employee ridership is concentrated. Adding guerrilla snipes near station entrances reinforces the campaign for pedestrians on the approach.
Yes. Portland MAX advertising is well-suited to event-driven campaigns because the Lloyd District and Convention Center stations serve Moda Center for Trail Blazers games and sit close to Providence Park for Portland Timbers matches. AGM builds event-timed campaign flights on Portland MAX Light Rail, concentrating interior car card buys on inbound trains before tip-off or kickoff and platform poster placements at Lloyd District to capture fans arriving from across the metro. Sidewalk decals and snipe posters at station entrances on game days extend the campaign above ground, surrounding fans at every touchpoint as they approach the venue via TriMet.
AGM places 9×12 snipe posters on utility poles, scaffolding, and construction boards within 100 feet of targeted Portland MAX station entrances, and installs branded vinyl sidewalk decals at staircase landings and the 20-foot approach walkway leading to each entrance. Every snipe and decal carries a QR code linked to a UTM-tracked landing page, creating a measurable digital layer on top of the physical street-level placement. This guerrilla surround intercepts riders before they board and reinforces the interior car card or platform advertising they encounter underground, building frequency across the full commuter journey. AGM documents every placement with geo-tagged photography for proof-of-install reporting.
AGM starts with a strategy session to define your target audience, line preferences, station priorities, and budget. We develop a custom TriMet media plan combining official Intersection placements with our guerrilla street layer, provide format-specific creative specifications, and manage the full execution from buy to installation. Our Portland-area field team deploys snipes and decals within the same 48-hour window as the transit placements for maximum simultaneous impact. Every Portland MAX Light Rail advertising placement is documented with geo-tagged photography, and you receive a comprehensive proof-of-install report with scan analytics from all QR-coded guerrilla units, giving your campaign complete measurement from platform to landing page with AGM.
