Metro’s Marketing Activities Spring – Summer 2004 Leann Landry Manager Advertising & Promotions June 2, 2004.

Metro’s Marketing ActivitiesMetro’s Marketing Activities

Spring – Summer 2004Spring – Summer 2004

Leann LandryLeann Landry

Manager Advertising & Manager Advertising & PromotionsPromotions

June 2, 2004June 2, 2004

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Off-Peak Advertising• Objective: All rail and many bus lines are at capacity during

peak work rush hours. Increasing ridership in the short-term requires us to encourage customers who have choices in transportation to use Metrobus/Metrorail for their discretionary trips.

• Strategy: Emphasize that Metro is about enabling customers to get to the important moments in their lives. To accomplish this we wanted to visually display the spirit of our tagline “Metro Opens Doors”.

• Tactics: The ads, which depict “off-peak” locations and superimpose Metro seats into the scene, are simple, crisp and easily understood. When needed, the ads work as B/W ads + spot color, there-fore cheaper than 4-C, but with same impact.

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Off-Peak Results to Date

• Paid Advertising started in March and will run through June. In-system ads started in May and will run through July.

• March Year-over-Year Ridership Results:– Offpeak Weekday: grew 12%– Weekend: grew 5.67%

• April Year-over-Year Ridership Results:– Offpeak Weekday: grew 4.2% – Weekend: grew 25.74%*

* Women’s March for Life in April. Actual growth likely in line with March.

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SmarTrip in Parking

• Objective: Inform Metro riders that after June 28th, they must use a SmarTrip card to exit Metro run parking lots.

• Strategy: Supplement present “in your face” sandwich board message with ongoing, softer advertising which provides a “call-to-action.”

• Tactics: Ads in Tuesday and Wednesday Express with Insert in Thursday’s Express. Flight three times over 8 weeks. Final week, Ads only.

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SmarTrip in Parking: Advertising

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Express Ad

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Express Insert – side 1

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SmarTrip in Parking: Emails

• Objective: 1% - 2% of ridership are Tourists. Need was to communicate Metro Parking changes to diverse segment. Target are organizations which communicate with Tourists – Hotels, WCTC, event organizers, etc…

• Strategy: Provide “ongoing” communication to highly targeted audience (approximately 4K contacts). Provide communication which can be easily shared.

• Tactics: Provide series of 3 emails which would communicate message upfront, but also entice audience to go to website and order a SmarTrip Card. Additionally, the email can be passed on to membership in the organization.

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SmarTrip in Parking - Emails

• Three versions of Emails: – 1st email: April 29th, 2004. Click Thru 6%– 2nd email: May 19th, 2004. Click Thru 5%– 3rd email: week of June 1st, 2004

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“30s are going your Way” - Bus promotion

• Objective: Increase “off-peak” ridership on a chosen bus route. Target present bus customers to select the bus for off-peak activities.

• Strategy: Select a route which serves “off-peak” venues, has good “peak period” ridership, has “off-peak” capacity, and has frequent off-peak service. Promotion was in conjunction with the Sierra Club of Washington DC.

• Tactics: Roll in community area venues to participate in promotion. In this case, Georgetown Park Mall provided discounts at numerous merchants for the entire month of April. Borders Books of Georgetown gave free coffee and book discount, WASH-FM did “on-air” dinner-and-a-movie giveaways promoting the 30s lines, and restaurants in the area gave certificates in exchange for the radio mentions.

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“Top 10 Reasons” and “Coupon Brochure”

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Pocket Folder

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Coupon Brochure

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“30s” Bus Promotion Results

• April 2004 growth in ridership over March 2004 was 9%.

• This is compared to a 1% decline in ridership over the same period the previous year.

• April YOY ridership increase was 11%.

• Future months results will determine sustainability.

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New Look/Feel for Metro

• Objective: Freshen the Metro look/feel to use more contemporary colors while keeping traditional Metro “brown.” Move the images away from “Metro centric” towards “customer focused.”

• Strategy: Update image to more closely reflect tagline “Metro Opens Doors” to people’s lives and their possibilities.

• Tactics: Create a “family” of collateral which is clever, yet with urban sophistication.

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Additional Items• Redesigning WMATA website• Test with NoVA maps on PDAs: determine customer usage

and customer acceptance.• Completed “Customer Information” Focus Groups in May.

Total of 8 focus groups. Findings will be presented end of June.

• Final “Public Perceptions of Transit” Tracking Study is completed. Jane & Donna will call each organization.

• Bi-lingual: English/Spanish– IVR for Customer Service will be up early June.– Bus Timetables will begin rolling out in June.– As part of DC United package, WMATA ran Spanish radio as well as in

print.

• Regional SmarTrip Design: Customer survey guided choice in design and LMO has expanded the initial design. They will be presented to the Marketing subcommittee this week.