METRO TV Partnership with the Houston Astros to Promote Rail Ridership.

Target Audience: This entry was designed to target anyone and everyone attending Astros home games at Minute Maid Park during the 2018 season.

Strategy Objective:The objective was to increase awareness and improve ridership on the METRORail Green and Purple Line, showing how quick and easy it is to get to Astros games and special events without the hassle and high cost of parking. We created a custom :30 commercial, in cooperation with the Astros, featuring the team mascot Orbit. The spot featured Orbit enjoying fame and basking in the good life after the Astros' 2017 World Series victory. We felt using Orbit as the focal point of this spot made the METRO message more memorable in our efforts to entice people to take METRORail to Minute Maid Park during the 2018. The spot ran during Astros home games exclusively on AT&T SportsNet and on social media throughout the 2018 season.

Situation Challenge: The Houston Astros are the region's hottest sports ticket. The problem is that traffic and lack of convenient and affordable parking make travel to Astros home games both expensive and inconvenient. As part of our partnership with the 2017 World Series Champions, METRO wanted to attract more fans to the game via our METRORail Green and Purple lines.

Results Impact: METRO's "Changing Orbit" spot was met with rave reviews and garnered more than 10 million impressions via television, as well as a 97.9% audience retention rate across social media throughout the 2018 Astros season. In winning the 2017 World Series, the Astros played a total 91 homes (81 + 10 playoff games in 2017 - with an increase of 65,429 boardings over the previous year. In 2018, the Astros did NOT make it to the World Series and played only 86 home games (5 less) - causing a decrease of 67,000 boardings. The Astros played FIVE FEWER home games in 2018 than in 2017. And with a ridership decrease of only approximately 2,094, the numbers clearly show that METRORail ridership had a slight increase based on the average ridership per game.

Why Submit: METRO drew a tough task. The Astros had won the World Series in 2017, so, anything less than another Championship would be difficult to match from a ridership standpoint. We pulled out all the stops with this spot to drive home the fact that METRORail was the quick, easy and inexpensive way to get to Minute Maid Park for every Astros home game in 2018.