BART Spring Break

Target Audience: Bay Area residents interested in travel and public transit.

Strategy Objective:BART ran ads on trains, local radio stations and the internet to promote riding BART to the airport and to enter the sweepstakes. This is the first campaign where we incorporated a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, including re-targeting ads, SEO, market segmentation based on demographic data and interests, and tracking where users convert in the marketing funnel (in our case, when they subscribed to our email database).

Situation Challenge: BART has not been immune to the challenges that other transit agencies across the nation face. BART has seen a decrease in ridership, especially on the weekends and to the airport.

Results Impact: The landing page for the campaign received more than 87,000 page views, and BART captured more than 25,000 new email subscribers. At the end of the campaign, we surveyed visitors and was well received. One respondent said: "It made me feel that riding BART was more than just a mode of transport to get to work. Felt as if BART cares for and values the commuters."

Why Submit: The campaign spread greater public awareness of using BART. It's worthy of an AdWheel because we were able to reach new audiences using re-targeting ads and demographic data from Facebook. We were successful in signing up 25,000 new BARTable email subscribers, which we now use both to build off-peak ridership and to educate people on the new initiatives BART is rolling out for the public, including new train cars, repair work, and station modernization.