| Title | EVERYONE WELCOME |
| Brand | VÄSTTRAFIK |
| Product/Service | PUBLIC TRANSPORT |
| Category |
B03. Use of Exhibitions / Installations |
|
Entrant
|
FORSMAN & BODENFORS Gothenburg, SWEDEN
|
|
Idea Creation
|
FORSMAN & BODENFORS Gothenburg, SWEDEN
|
Credits
| Greger Andersson |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Account Supervisor |
| Helen Johansson |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Account Manager |
| Lars Jansson |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Art Director |
| Staffan Forsman |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Art Director |
| Anders Hegerfors |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Copywriter |
| Pontus Caresten |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Copywriter |
| Christoffer Persson |
Forsman & Bodenfors |
Designer |
| Johan Samuelsson |
Happy Forsman & Bodenfors |
Illustrator |
| Susanne Eriksson |
Västtrafik |
Advertisers Supervisor |
The Campaign
The idea was simple: trams have accessibility seats for the elderly. Why not extend the signage to include everyone? We made stickers of all kinds of people and put them beside every seat. And wrapped it up with a window sign aboard the trams saying we’re all in this together.
Campaign Success
During the local Pride festival we put custom-made pictogram stickers in the style of “seats for the elderly” stickers in 50 of Västtrafiks trams. The stickers depicted people of different occupation, age, religion, interest or sexual orientation. We put them beside every seat to target individual commuters directly. To drive the message home we used window signs inside the trams. Aside from that we used neither bought media nor seeding.
Describe the success of the promotion with both client and consumer including some quantifiable results
Public transportation in Gothenburg doesn’t get a lot of praise – Västtrafik can’t make people like them with the help of advertising alone (or at all). The only way to reach people is by creating a genuine, local grass-roots reaction from ordinary people. This campaign did just that: it was small, but led to tens of thousands of genuinely positive posts, shares and comments. More than 50,000 interactions were made. In a city of 500,000, it was an overwhelming response for a company everyone loves to hate. In fact, it was their most successful brand building campaign to date.
Explain why the method of promotion was most relevant to the product or service
The response and participation of the commuting public was essential in this campaign – in itself it would barely be noticed. Besides, fellow commuters genuinely praising Västtrafik naturally has a lot more credibility than Västtrafik themselves trying to do the same thing. And the response was more than anyone would have dreamed of.
We wanted to underline one of the greatest things about public transport: It’s for everyone. By taking a stand in times of segregation, we were able to create a lot of buzz in Gothenburg, as well as sympathy for Västtrafik. By using simple stickers dressed as information on Västtrafiks own trams, we hoped to create something that the commuting public wanted to talk about, and share. Without explicitly asking for it.