Hey Vancouver-It's Your Transit!

Target Audience: With the launch of contactless credit card payment on our Compass Card fare-payment system, Visa tapped actor Morgan Freeman to voice station announcements promoting this new option. A day later, they were paused after Visa suspended the actor as spokesperson. This prompted actor and comedian Seth Rogen to offer up his voice to TransLink for announcements in a tweet. We capitalized on the offer to use Rogen's voice to bolster our upcoming etiquette campaign to improve the customer experience on transit. The target audience for this campaign was our customers, while building excitement in transit for our infrequent and occasional users.

Strategy Objective:We wanted to improve the customer experience, increase public support and enhance the brand. Each transit agency grapples with etiquette problems and there's no "one size fits all" solution. There were two parts to the campaign: the station and in-vehicle announcements voiced by Rogen, and interior ad cards, illustrated by students at a local art and design university who are also our customers. It was clear to us from the outset that to remedy lousy behavior on transit, you have to be on transit. That meant resisting the urge to blast our etiquette messaging on social media or any other medium where the audience may or may not be our customers. This ensured customers first saw the illustrations and heard the unique Rogen announcements in situ on transit.

Situation Challenge: Transit ridership is booming in Metro Vancouver, soaring to a record-breaking 407 million boardings in 2017 amidst declining ridership in Canada and the US. Only four urban areas with populations over one-million that saw ridership growth in 2017 and Metro Vancouver led the way with a 5.7% year-over-year growth. Over the past 10 years (2008'2017), our region's population has grown by 14.6% and transit ridership has far outpaced it, growing 37.5% in the same period. This unprecedented growth means transit is becoming the preferred option for more people in the region. Taking transit means sharing space. With this campaign, we challenged our customers to make their transit ride even more awesome, while educating new customers the little actions that can make for a better experience.

Results Impact: On a shoestring budget, the campaign generated the 2nd highest level of awareness among a list of 12 recent TransLink initiatives. Market research found 77% awareness, with many saying it made them feel more positive about TransLink. Across social, there was a 1300% increase in total engagement, 776% increase in reach and our promo video amassed over 2 million views. - Recognized by Fast Company as a top ad of the week next to Burger King and Apple - Other transit agencies joined in the conversation, asking their customers who they'd like to be a celebrity guest voice - International media coverage, including CNN, BBC, The Washington Post, CBS, GQ, Times of Israel and more - Many customers said it worked including one customer who took action after hearing the "backpacks off" announcement

Why Submit: The pausing of the Freeman announcements was a public relations crisis for TransLink. Within hours of the news breaking, we turned the conversations around by listening to our customers on social. We jumped on chatter, immediately responding and engaging with Rogen. The conversation changed from the TransLink brand associating with Freeman, to associating with Rogen and the excitement having a local celebrity guest voice announcements. We managed to turn a negative into a positive to bolster our etiquette campaign, reaching far more people. We also enhanced our brand associating ourselves with Rogen. This was all done through a shoestring budget. Rogen voiced the announcements pro bono and the interior ads used reserve space owned by TransLink.