GO Transit Etiquette Book

Target Audience: All GO Transit customers, especially people who behave badly on public transit. To demonstrate their commitment to delivering a comfortable ride for their 250,000+ daily commuters, GO Transit needed to take a stance against bad transit etiquette. The issue: 96% of riders indicated they'd been impacted by bad etiquette (feet on seats, nail clipping, etc.). So, in 2016, we launched the GO Transit campaign #EtiquetteFail. The strategy was to spark social conversation and invite GO riders to voice etiquette fails that were bothering them the most. Complaints to GO's customer service centre dropped by 80%, far exceeding our target of 30%.

Strategy Objective:We created a campaign in the form of a book release. First, we teased the release of the new book with pre-order opportunities. We invited social media influencers and passionate GO commuters with book material to share it on their social platforms. The teaser phase built up to a book launch-event at Union Station in Toronto with media in attendance, and where transit riders could be the first to get their hands on this limited edition. The piece of "literature" was then made available as a free e-book on a microsite. The process of writing and publishing the book allowed GO to have a two-way conversation with their riders in real-time, while raising awareness that something was being done to improve rider etiquette.

Situation Challenge: GO Transit wanted to demonstrate their long-term commitment to improving transit etiquette. In 2017/2018, to keep the conversation going with riders, we needed to keep the topic top-of-mind. First, as a true community effort, we reached out to riders and crowdsourced their most irritating etiquette fails. Based on GO riders venting online using hashtag #EtiquetteFail and through voting in a series of #EtiquetteFail-related online polls, riders provided content for what became a 100-page book. We called it Unwritten Rules of Public Transit Etiquette Written Down. It was lighthearted in writing style and design. Major #EtiquetteFail examples were whimsically illustrated and important information was conveyed through charts, lists and infographics.

Results Impact: From the first day that we invited riders to participate, whether voting in our polls or sharing their experiences, we knew we had hit a hot button. The campaign received both national and local news coverage. Twitter Canada announced that we had the top Twitter poll of 2017. On the day of the softcover book launch, it sold out in just a few hours. Only three weeks after going live, over 10,000 e-books had been downloaded, exceeding our goal by 50%. Despite the topic of conversation being riders behaving badly, we had overwhelmingly positive social sentiment at 84%, increasing from 42%, as riders voiced their appreciation of GO making etiquette a priority. That's literally a 100% improvement. All for a total media spend of less than $70,000.

Why Submit: The evolution strategy of this campaign continued to keep a true community effort fresh in a way that was embraced by the GO Transit rider community. What bigger way to bring the conversation out in the open than to literally write a book about the unwritten rules of public transit etiquette? Attachments: Etiquette Case Study, Etiquette Book