PROUD TRAMS

TitlePROUD TRAMS
BrandVÄSTTRAFIK PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Product/ServicePUBLIC TRANSPORT
Category B03. Use of Ambient Media: Large Scale
Entrant FORSMAN & BODENFORS Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Idea Creation FORSMAN & BODENFORS Gothenburg, SWEDEN
PR FORSMAN & BODENFORS Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Credits
Name Company Position
Greger Andersson Forsman & Bodenfors Account Director
Helen Johansson Forsman & Bodenfors Account Manager
Lars Jansson Forsman & Bodenfors Art Director
Pontus Caresten Forsman & Bodenfors Copywriter
Christoffer Persson Forsman & Bodenfors Designer
Robert Johnsson, Sebastian Nowacki Forsman & Bodenfors PR
Anita Rafiei Forsman & Bodenfors Planner
Ebba Chambert, Oscar Andersson, Linden Carter, Mira Cederwall Victorin, Nathalie Ruejas Jonson, Linnéa Teljas Puranen, Gustav Gigi Sandin Ebba Chambert, Oscar Andersson, Linden Carter, Mira Cederwall Victorin, Nathalie Ruejas Jonson, Linnéa Teljas Puranen, Gustav Gigi Sandin Artists
Malin Ingrid Johansson Femme Film Director
Andreas Almkvist Andreas Almkvist DOP
Nicolas Peyrau F&B Studios Photographer
Kårp Kårp Music

Why is this work relevant for Direct?

Through an immersive and customer focused experience, we altered the very core product of public transport in Gothenburg: the trams themselves. By re-designing them, and making them into pieces of art rolling through the city, they acted as both the media and the message, directly facing the target group.

Background

For many years, Västtrafik Public Transport have supported the local Pride festival in Gothenburg, Sweden. This year, the city hosted EuroPride – a joint festival celebrated every year in Europe hosting conversation and networking for a stronger fight for equal rights. Connected to this event, Västtrafik wanted to make a bold statement for diversity. In addition to this, most people are very positive to public transport in general but when it comes to the provider Västtrafik, the majority is not as positive. To adress this gap, it was important to remind people of public transport as a force of inclusion and diversity. Their longtime collaboration with Pride was the perfect context to showcase this.

Describe the creative idea

Västtrafik invited young artists from the LGBTQ community to repaint six of Gothenburg’s iconic trams. To make a statement for everyone’s right to public space – and public transport. The colors of the rainbow were represented by the tram line numbers; from the red number 5 to the purple number 8. The trams were then photographed, and the prints were auctioned off, giving all the proceeds to charity supporting the LGBTQ community.

Describe the strategy

In order highlight everyone's right to the public space, we had to reach beyond the LGBTQ community and into the mainstream. To do that we needed to take place in the physical public space as well as earn our place in both traditional and social media. The trams themselves were the media, reaching the target audience directly. They were covered in news stories and photographed on the streets. In addition to that, the media strategy focused on social platforms, using customized 1x1 format and sponsored posts as the major asset. In terms of PR, we did a series of national and international pushes to get coverage in both mainstream and LGBTQ media.

Describe the execution

After a long research phase, we found six artists from the LGBTQ community, who were comfortable doing large scale paintings. Each of them got one empty tram, that they could paint however they wanted – in one of the colors of the rainbow. We transformed the tram garage into an art studio, and the artists had four days to finish their work before we uncovered the Proud Trams in front of the Swedish media. All the trams then ran though the streets of Gothenburg during the festival.

List the results

The campaign had a massive impact on social media and in traditional channels, with large organic spread. The campaign posts on social media had an engagement rate that was 171% higher than Västtrafik’s average on the same period previous years. The story was covered in almost all major Swedish news media, and several international publications. – Articles published: +70 – Global reach: +61 000 000 – Impressions: +186 000 000