Project no.:
Project acronym:
Project title:
518368
MAX
Successful Travel Awareness Campaigns and Mobility Management Strategies
Integrated Project
6.2 Sustainable Development
1.6.2 Sustainable Surface Transport Objective
3.1.1.1.3 Advancing Knowledge on innovative measures in urban transport
Title of Report:
Branding in Travel Awareness
Period covered:
Start date of project:
Date of preparation:
1 Oct. 2006
Duration:
Version:
Prepared by:
Final
Lyle Bailie International
Checked by:
Verified by:
Status:
Dissemination level:
Final
Public
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the Sixth Framework Programme (2002-2008)
MAX - introduction
MAX ran from 2006 to 2009 and was the largest research project on Mobility Management within the EU’s sixth
framework programme. The MAX consortium, of 28 partners, served to extend, standardise and improve
Mobility Management – it did so in the fields of quality management, campaigns, evaluation, modelling and land
use planning. Much of the work was directly endorsed by the European Platform on Mobility Management
(EPOMM) and continues to be supported by EPOMM – in order to provide truly Europe-wide expansion,
standardisation and dissemination of Mobility Management.
The work has resulted in several products and services that can be downloaded via www.epomm.org.
For more information, please visit www.epomm.org or www.max-success.eu
Max Partners
Austrian Mobility Research, FGM-AMOR
(project leader) – Austria
Mobiel 21 – Belgium
ILS Institut für Landes- und
Stadtentwicklungsforschung gGmbH – Germany
Eric N. Schreffler, Transportation Consultant – USA
Equipo de Tecnicos en Transporte y Territorio,
ETT – Spain
FIT Consulting – Italy
Lyle Bailie International Limited – United Kingdom
synergo – Switzerland
Timo Finke Consult Aachen – Germany
Traject – Belgium
Austrian Standards Institute – Austria
Trivector – Sweden
Universities
University of Piraeus Research Centre – Greece
University of Maribor, Faculty of Civil
Engineering – Slovenia
Cracow University of Technology – Poland
Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – Greece
University of Lyon – CNRS-LET – France
Edinburgh Napier University – United Kingdom
University of Central Lancashire – United Kingdom
Otto-von-Guericke-University of Magdeburg – Germany
University of Giessen, Institute for applied and
empirical social research – Germany
Vilnius Gedimas Technical
University – Lithuania
Demonstrators
Almada Municipal Energy Agency,
AGENEAL – Portugal
Almada Municipality – Portugal
Lazio Transport Company COTRAL – Italy
Kortrijk Municipality – Belgium
Tallinn Municipality – Estonia
Munich Municipality – Germany
Table of Contents
1
2
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 5
1.1
What is a brand? ..................................................................................................................................... 5
1.2
How a Brand Works ................................................................................................................................ 6
1.3
Branding in Travel Awareness ................................................................................................................ 8
Case Studies ................................................................................................................................................. 10
2.1
Metro, West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (WYPTE). ....................................................... 10
2.2
Wiener Linien, Vienna, Austria. ............................................................................................................ 10
2.3
Transports Metropolitan de Barcelona (TMB). .................................................................................... 11
2.4
Translink, Northern Ireland .................................................................................................................. 11
3
Conclusions .................................................................................................................................................. 15
4
References .................................................................................................................................................... 16
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1
Introduction
Brands are part of everyday life: thousand of books and articles have been written on the subject of brands and
branding – and thousands more have yet to be written.
The purpose of this paper is to give an overview of what a brand means, how it works and to give some examples
of ‘best practice’ application in the travel awareness sector.
In the writing of the report, a number of sources have been referred to, including UITP (International Association
of Public Transport), the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), as well as a host of public transport
organisations and travel awareness bodies throughout the UK and the European mainland.
1.1
What is a brand?
Put simply, a successful brand can be defined as “…a name, symbol, design, or some combination, which
identifies the ‘product’ of a particular organisation as having sustainable differential advantage.” 1
Differential advantage meaning that customers have a reason for preferring that brand to that of a competitor.
Sustainable meaning an advantage that is not easily copied by competitors.
It is important to say here that, while branding is often associated with a logo, it is much more complex than this
and should not be limited to a mere graphic design. A beautifully designed logo will mean little to a customer
who has been kept standing in the rain by a late bus!
In the consumer’s mind the brand is, quite simply, a set of expectations: a promise. Jacques Chevron, the founder
partner of the brand management consultancy company JP Group in US describes a brand as “a covenant with
the consumer, a promise that the brand and the products it names will conform to the expectations that have
been created over time. A brand exists only because of its commitment to its internal values. Without that
commitment, it is nothing but a glorified product name.” 2 Therefore, tangible elements such as product, name,
logo, packaging and intangible components such as values, visions and promises must come together to make a
brand unique.
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1.2
How a Brand Works
Brands are stored as ‘representations’ across the brain and these are stored in a structured way 3 :

Knowledge (the brain asks questions such as What is it? What does it look like? What does it do?
and so on)

Experience (the brain asks questions such as How would I use it?)

Emotion (the brain asks questions such as How do I feel about it?)
The more balanced the representations, the stronger the brand. It is, therefore, crucial that brands:

Have clear symbols and cues to identify what the brand is

Make clear what the brand experience is like

Make the audience feel good about the brand
To have influence, campaigns need ENGAGEMENT – this doesn’t mean that the audience has to think hard
about the advertising or brand; it could simply mean just enjoying it. Emotion and distinctiveness are the big
cues of engagement.
Simply being there is not enough!
Furthermore, the message must be personally relevant i.e. it must resonate by tapping into the audience’s issues
of importance. In general, people will become more involved in decision-making regarding [products] that have
high personal relevance and involve ‘high risk’, for example cars, computers, or clothes. Other product decisions
will have low levels of involvement, for example products such as light-bulbs, matches or toilet rolls. Where
consumers are making a high-involvement decision they will generally search for more alternatives, carry out
more evaluation, and look for advice. The opposite is true of low-involvement decisions. The level of consumer
involvement is determined by a combination of personal and situational factors. In other words, it will depend on
the importance of the decision to the consumer and the context in which the decision is being made. Customer
involvement, therefore, is particularly important in understanding the power of branding.
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4
Crucially, the brand needs to own a motivational emotion which creates a desire in the minds of the target
audience.
Here’s what DuPlessis says about the ‘brand’:
As with all things we experience, exposure to a brand will trigger all its related feelings, associations and
memories to create an initial emotional response that then shapes our more considered reaction. The origin of
these associations does not matter – it can be nostalgia created by childhood experiences, antipathy based on
who we see using the brand, or simply a positive reaction to the look of the product. All these things have the
potential to shape our more rational consideration [of a purchase].
And:
Too many theories about advertising are based on the belief that brand associations are buried in our
subconscious, and assume that complex psychological methods are required to dredge them up. A far better
analogy, consistent with real-life observation, is an overstocked cupboard to which the brand is key. Hearing the
page 7 / 16
brand mentioned, seeing the logo, watching the ad – any of these can turn the key and open the cupboard door.
As the door opens, memories and associations will tumble out, and they will continue to do so as long as the
door is kept open. Advertising memories are among the items cascading out; there is no separate cupboard
specifically for associations created from advertising. In fact, unless advertising memories are kept in the same
cupboard as all other brand associations, they will not benefit the brand in any way. The Advertised Mind,
DuPlessis 5
It is clear, therefore, that the brand should evoke in the consumer emotional feelings, rather than a clinical or
rational understanding: the brand can communicate the rational without actually explaining it.
Brand Linkage
5
A crucial consideration in brand management is to make certain that any advertising achieves brand linkage.
Clients’ money can so easily be wasted because consumers are able to remember the advertisement but not the
brand being advertised – or worse, the advertising makes them think of a competitor brand.
With this in mind, any brand mark must be properly branded in its advertising.
The concept of the ‘effective length’ of an advertisement is defined as the length of the advertisement from the
first moment attention is engaged and the viewer realises which brand is being advertised. Therefore, if an
advertisement is 30 seconds long but the brand is only ‘mentioned’ 15 seconds into the ad, then its ‘effective
length’ is only 15 seconds. Setting the branding early in the advertising will mean that any advertising will work
much harder to establish the brand in the minds of the target audience(s).
1.3
Branding in Travel Awareness
There would appear to be few documented examples of branding specific to Travel Awareness. However, if we
extrapolate the area of Travel Awareness out to mean Public Transport we then have some very useful points of
reference.
Over the following pages a number of sources have been referred to, including UITP (International Association
of Public Transport), the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), as well as a host of public transport
organisations and travel awareness bodies.
In its core brief 6, How to build, strengthen or manage a brand in public transport, UITP describes branding as
“a set of activities which define a consistent product or service based on identified customer needs; associate
appropriate values and imagery with the organisation, product or service; communicate consistently through
naming, design, advertising and promotions with the market place”.
How successful a brand is starts with its role in the internal culture of an organisation: it has to be right on the
inside before it can be right on the outside! The next measure of strength lies in how the ‘face’ of the
organisation interacts with its customers. Unfortunately, there is often a deficit between how an organisation
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would like its brand to be perceived and how it is actually perceived. It is clear, therefore, that the closer the
correlation between these two elements – brand identity and brand image – the better it for the brand.
The public transport market is no different from any other market insofar as the consumer has a choice: the
choice to buy one product over another, or, in this case, the choice to use private transport versus public
transport. This means that public transport organisations need to be customer focused.
The UITP brief explains that in developing a strong brand the organisation must identify its vision (the role and
position of public transport in the greater context of urban mobility), its mission (what the organisation is going
to do to achieve that vision), its values (what the core principles of the organisation are that the brand will use to
guide its mission), and the brand personality (which human features the brand seeks to project).
The best way to illustrate how a successful brand works is by way of demonstration of actual case studies;
genuine applications.
It is recommended that the organisations featured here are contacted for further insight.
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2
Case Studies
2.1
Metro, West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive (WYPTE) .
Metro is the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) and Executive (PTE). The Authority sets
policies to make public transport in West Yorkshire, reliable, easy to understand and use, accessible, attractive,
affordable, safe and secure and efficient. 7
Under the Transport Act 1980, bus systems in the UK were deregulated and privatised. With deregulation,
WYPTE went from being both operator and coordinator of public transport within its area to an agency
coordinating public transport without responsibility on commercial operation. This meant that the organisation
no longer had influence over all public transport services in the area; a position that caused some customer
confusion.
To help position WYPTE’s new role it embarked on a branding strategy within a comprehensive marketing
approach aiming at “encouraging the use of public transport by providing its use in partnership with others,
particularly emphasising its role as an environmentally friendly alternative to the car”.
The visible manifestation of this re-branding was the development of a new logo of white M on a red circle to
create a strong presence that promoted sustainable integrated transport.
Branding throughout bus stations, stops, travel centres, telephone information services and printed information
services, the authority succeeded in building a strong image of Metro as an entry point to public transport. In
measurable terms, the organisation’s brand identity achieved a spontaneous recognition of 86%.
2.2
Wiener Linien, Vienna, Austria.
Wiener Linien runs the largest part of the public transit network in Vienna.
The company has been extensively developing its branding since the early 90s within a comprehensive and
offensive marketing strategy.
The brand has evolved from a position in the 1970s when all mobile citizens could travel with Wiener Linien; to
a position in 2000 where citizens wished to travel with them. The organisation’s objective by 2010 is to have
citizens loving to travel as Wiener Linien passengers.
page 10 / 16
In 1995, despite successes in the areas of technical and operational competence, there was evidence that all was
not so good with customer perception of, and personal relationship with, the Linien brand. To address this, the
company undertook branding across all marketing activities to ensure that “customers will experience the
company’s self evident aspects in a consistent way, in terms of product, cost, sales and related communication”.
In addition to the logo and slogan “The city is yours. Wiener Linien”, the company chose a uniform and
homogenous use of marketing tools and gave the brand a human touch to help make customers personally
engaged with the company (Wiener Linien clearly recognized the value of how a brand’s strength lies in its
public ‘face’).
Successful results were not long in coming with a change in market share of public transport from 29% in 1992
to 33% in 2000. Their target is 35% by 2010. By 1999 and 2000, indicators of passenger satisfaction all rose by
more than 20%.
2.3
Transports Metropolitan de Barcelona (TMB).
TMB is the main public transit authority in Barcelona. It runs most of the metro and local bus lines in the city
and its metropolitan area.
This brand was updated to improve public perception of the service. Research demonstrated that customers of
the underground and bus services could relate to the individual products, but not to the TMB brand. Most people
used public transport because they had no alternative, not because it added to their quality of life, resulting in a
poor image.
TMB’s strategy was to change all this by elevating public transport in the hearts and minds of the consumer to a
place where it was something much more positive than an unfavourable choice to private transport. This was
achieved by refreshing the company’s corporate identity, establishing new brand values, and communicating the
changes via a new communications strategy. The traditional TMB logo was replaced with a new dynamic
symbol and a comprehensive approach to re-branding and publicity was defined. Follow-up and control
mechanisms were established for tracking and managing the impact of the actions on both external and internal
customers for the three years following this action.
In 2006, TMB carried over 561 million passengers. 8
2.4
Translink, Northern Ireland
Translink is the brand name of the Northern Ireland Transport Holding Company (NITHCo), a public
corporation which provides the public transport in Northern Ireland.
The following presents excerpts and adaptations from an entry for the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising
Effectiveness Awards in 2007. 9
page 11 / 16
In February 2005, the Citybus brand disappeared to be replaced by Metro – a more modern, contemporary
brand with a dramatic magenta livery. With impending changes to the delivery of public transport, Translink had
taken the strategic decision to re-brand and restructure as a means of securing their position on key routes and
protect them from the potential future challenge by other operators.
The communications challenges for the Metro brand could be summarised as:




introducing the new brand as a seamless transition from Citybus to Metro
positioning the brand as a viable alternative to the private car
promoting and encouraging change of habit – specifically amongst commuters
growing passenger journeys and revenue
The introduction of Metro brought new vehicle livery, with magenta as the primary colour (the old livery was
red).
Metro livery
Citybus livery
This was a bold move, but also an opportunity to “own” the colour and take full advantage of its presence. The
same magenta was adopted for the communications campaign – thereby linking the physical manifestation of the
brand with the communications. This also had the advantage of making the campaign appear much bigger than
budgets would allow, because the actual buses and their livery became integrated with the campaign.
The launch of Metro meant more than a new name and new livery: a new network structure was introduced,
making it simpler and easier to understand and use. The new name was deemed to be more modern,
contemporary and urban and the strong vibrant livery a good platform for “new” positioning and for brand
recognition.
page 12 / 16
The “let's go Metro” campaign launched in March 2005. By March 2006 there had been an increase in
patronage of over 10%, equating to an additional 2,106,561 passenger journeys and delivering in the first year a
third of the targeted growth.
The successes in increased bus usage must be viewed in the context of:




At the end of 2005, there were 917,399 vehicles licensed in Northern Ireland, 83% of which were Private
Light Goods (primarily private cars). Over the period from 1992 to 2005 Northern Ireland had outstripped
England, Scotland and Wales in terms of increases in licensed vehicle stock.
Increases in the number of Northern Ireland households owning a car increased from 73% in 2001/2002 to
76% in 2005/2006. Furthermore, 32% of all households in Northern Ireland own two or more cars: this
represents an increase of 5% on the 2001/2002 figure.
Increases in the issue of driving licences: the number of ordinary licences issued in the year 2005/2006,
directly corresponding to Metro's first year, experienced a massive spike with almost 100,000 more licences
issued that year than in the previous two years.
‘Competitor’ industry activity: figures indicate that the motor trade's advertising expenditure in Northern
Ireland during 2005 was £19.3 million (Source: Advertising Association Statistics Yearbook, population
weighted).
By comparison, the media spend for Metro during the same year equated to 0.75% of that: in effect, the motor
trade spent over 13,000 times more on advertising than did Metro.
There is no doubt that the twelve months following the introduction of Metro were both highly successful for the
brand and notably significant for long term development of public transport in the city. The habitual change that
was delivered during that period has created a platform for ongoing growth and achievement of the long-term
targets set out for Translink. The communications campaign continued for the following twelve months at a
similar level and within a broadly similar context. A further 3% growth (provisional) by March 2007, in addition
to the 10.6% from year one, was added. It was so observed over the period that passenger profiles changed with
a much greater predominance of the commuter-type more normally associated with car travel.
Translink’s latest campaign for Metro, Metro Connects, centres on an animated TV commercial featuring Belfast
landmarks, aimed at allowing viewers to make their own personal associations with Metro. 10
Translink describe their new campaign as a first for a transport operator in Northern Ireland, in that no bus or
people will be incorporated!
Instead, ‘Metro Connects’ features magenta ribbons as the Metro network travelling through Belfast with
buildings and landmarks of the City highlighted. The ‘connect’ theme highlights the various ways that Metro
contributes to the city by:
 Providing a range of journey connections for individual passengers
 Connecting local communities,
 Connecting local businesses/stakeholders
page 13 / 16


Connected to contributing to an improved environment for all
Connecting with Belfast as a vibrant, growing and modern European City
Newly released figures show over 20% growth on Metro services since February 2005 equating to 500,000
passengers now using Metro services each week and 38,000 fewer cars on the road! 10
page 14 / 16
3
Conclusions
Branding plays an immense role in the lives of every one, every day of our lives. We make important decisions
based on brands; many of us live our lives based on brands and what they promise. Branding, therefore, is no
less important in Travel Awareness than it is in any other sector.
If sustainable mobility is to be achieved, public transport operators need to improve the attractiveness of their
offering among those wedded to private transport.
And a strong brand has the ability to help improve the perception of the offering in question… just think of the
strength of car brands: in 2007, car brands (Toyota, Mercedes, BMW, Honda) represent one fifth of the Top 20
brands in the world.11 This is what sustainable mobility is up against!
What these car brands – and virtually all of the other most valuable brands in the world – have in common is that
they don’t sell products or services; they sell dreams, a better way of life. This was best put by Charles Revson,
founder of the cosmetics giant Revlon, who said “in the factory we make cosmetics, but in the store we sell
hope.”
One final thought for consideration – however sustainable mobility positions itself, the message should be
careful about not ‘demonising’ the car – most of the audience own one; love one, even!
page 15 / 16
4
References
1.
Excellence in Advertising: The IPA Guide to Best Practice (Chartered Institute of Marketing)
2.
How Much for That Brand in the Window? Thoughts about brand valuation, Jacques Chevron, 2000.
3.
Millward Brown
4.
Marketing, Third Edition, Donal Rogan, Gill & Macmillan, 2007
5.
The Advertised Mind, Erik Du Plessis, Millward Brown, 2005.
6.
UITP (International Association of Public Transport) How to build, strengthen or manage a brand in public
transport, January, 2003.
7.
West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive.
8.
Transports Metropolitans de Barcelona (TMB).
9.
Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, UK.
10. Translink, Northern Ireland.
11. All brands are not created equal, Best Global Brands 2007, Business Week, Interbrand 2007.
Other Reference Points
Campaign for Better Transport
Excellence in Brand Communication, The ICA (Institute of Communications and Advertising, Canada) Guide to
Best Practice, Rutherford et al.
Travelwise
UITP (International Association of Public Transport) Marketing as an investment in greater client satisfaction
and better benefits, September, 2002.
UK Bus Awards
Wiener Linien
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