Imagine All the Places You Can Go on the R Line

Target Audience: The target market for RTD's "R Line imagine all the places you can go" marketing and promotional campaign encompassed the entire eastern and southern metro Denver areas with specific focus on a few targeted audiences. The specific targeted audiences included: residents and jurisdictions along the R line rail alignment, commuters traveling to the Denver Tech business center, commuters transferring to other rail lines to the downtown business district, business and leisure travelers connecting with the University of Colorado A Line to the airport, and visitors of municipal, medical and shopping centers along the rail line. A variety of tactics were used to tailor and deliver the message to the correct audience.

Strategy Objective:Our research indicated that ridership lagged during non peak hours and so our multimedia campaign was developed to showcase "all the places you can go on the R Line" including physical city landmarks (municipal center, mall, town center) as well as summer events. The marketing campaign was designed to increase service awareness, educate the public, and generate excitement to encourage ridership through bold type, prominent display of the line letter designation "R" in bright green, modern illustrations, icons and maps coupled with direct service details for our target audiences. Tactics included: print ads, bus shelters, billboards, on vehicle ads, public utility insert and door hanger, wrapped trains, the RTD website, social media, and multiple news and lifestyle websites.

Situation Challenge: Opened in February 2017, RTD's R Line is 22 miles of crosstown rail service through several cities, establishing connections to the greater metro area and to downtown Denver for business and entertainment purposes. As the main rail line through the city of Aurora and Lone Tree, and the first of its kind in many areas throughout the community, the line creates both increased connections and greater pathways to the greater Denver metro area and provides a foundation for future economic and transit-oriented development opportunities for the city. The challenge that necessitated this entry was to increase overall ridership on the line.

Results Impact: This comprehensive campaign generated tremendous awareness for the R Line, resulting in more than 106,800,000 million multimedia impressions during the promotional period from mid-March to November 2018. These included more than 78 million on vehicles, 24 million out of home, 1.1 million print, and 2.8 million digital. The overwhelming response regarding the creative and messaging was positive and proved effective in raising awareness with an 11 percent increase in ridership on the line during the course of the campaign. Ridership has increased from 6,400 to approximately 7,000 riders per day as the line provides access and connections to many areas and activities across our district.

Why Submit: RTD's R Line campaign was a strategic, comprehensive and integrated effort that reached thousands of metro area residents and commuters with multiple touch-points in their homes, places of business, and throughout the metro area. The campaign, conducted in cooperation with the City of Aurora, the main with through which the line travels, was designed to specifically address nonpeak ridership and it proved highly effective, improving ridership 11 percent during the course of the campaign run.