The JCDecaux survey found recall levels of 55 to 86 per cent for liquor advertising against banking's 31 to 70 per cent, food and beverage's 32 to 60 per cent and toiletries' 42 to 67 per cent.
In particular, advertising by San Miguel for the launch of its light beer variant, and Heineken received some of the highest recall scores.
The San Miguel campaign, built around a provocative cartoon character called Sammy used a mix of formats, including trackside 12-sheet posters and television spot, consecutive series of escalator posters and in-train glass pane stickers.
According to the study, the San Miguel Light campaign achieved 86 per cent incidence of seeing recall, 71 per cent on brand recognition and 63 per cent on message recall.
In contrast, Heineken, which used a similar range of formats excluding in-train stickers, achieved recall levels in the low to mid-50s for the three key measures.
In the toiletries and skincare range Advanced VO5 and local cosmetic company Fancl House achieved among the highest recall levels for incidence of seeing and brand recognition but fell down on message recall.
However, Advanced VO5's creative, which used two consecutive four-sheet panels in heavy traffic areas, is credited for the robust scores on incidence of seeing and brand recognition.
Similarly, in the banking category, CMG Asia's use of three, four-sheet executions with panel extensions at 13 sites, was cited as another example where creative use helped boost recall levels.
The poll of respondents aged 15 to 49 concluded that MTR advertising was exposed to passengers eight times a week, reaching an average of 44 per cent of passengers.
This equalled 1.43 million people recall seeing the particular posters "in the past seven days".
