San Bernardino County Marketing Campaign

Ridership campaigns created for four transit systems in the San Bernardino Desert and Mountain Communities – Victor Valley Transit Authority, Mountain Transit, Morongo Basin Transit Authority and Needles Area Transit, in partnership with Transit Marketing, LLC.

While the campaigns were unique to each community and included a diverse mix of elements, they were “branded” with a distinctive look to create a unified image for public transit across the region.

As part of this project we created and implemented:

• Free Ride Offers promoted via direct mail, print and on-line advertising
• Outdoor advertising campaigns – using bus shelters, bus wraps, banners and window coverings
• Targeted Collateral materials including posters, handouts and displays
• Brand updates (for the individual systems)
• Upgraded websites
• Enhanced printed passenger information
• Transit Center Displays
• Social Media Posts

The unified creative approach for the overall project with the theme “Set Yourself Free” grew out of the market research which showed that the thing that motivates transit riders in these rural and suburban communities to use transit is that it offers advantages over the alternatives – waiting for a ride with others, the costs of maintaining an older car, etc. Hence transit allows you to “Set Yourself Free”…”From Worrying About Your Ride,” “To Go Your Own Way,” “From the Costs of Your Car.”

The visual design of the campaign highlights these messages by setting modern, clean typographic design against warm, personal, engaging photographs of people riding the bus. The photos are treated in a way that mutes much of the photo, producing a light, sunny, airy feel, and allowing the typography to be easily readable overlaid on the photo. The photo treatment draws the viewer into the photo and to make a strong connection between the text and the person pictured.

The campaign paired these appeals and images with information that makes using transit easier (targeted maps and directions for using Google Transit to plan transit trips), and free ride offers that allowed potential users to ride 5 days for free.