RTD Campaign to demonstrate our relationship to our communities, our relevance to those we serve, and our connectivity to Colorado

Target Audience: The target audience for RTD's Colorado Proud campaign, which started in February and continues actively on our social media channels, included RTD customers and potential customers, social media followers, the general public within the RTD service district, board members, media, stakeholders, and partners.

Strategy Objective:We featured influential local figures to demonstrate our connection to the people and history of Colorado, coinciding with recognized monthly observances, including Black History, Women's History, Asian American, Pacific Islander and Jewish American Heritage, LGBTQ+ Pride, and Native American History Month, among others. Subjects ranged from Dr. Justina Ford, Denver's first African American doctor, to Lily Nie, an advocate for orphans in China, to Tim Gill, an openly gay advocate for LGBTQ+ rights, to Chief Ouray, 19th century leader of the Tabeguache Indians in Colorado. In addition, we profiled significant events such as Colorado's signing of the Civil Rights Act, which abolished segregation and the activism of the Gang of 19, which paved the way for the Americans with Disabilities Act.

Situation Challenge: RTD is part of the fabric of the communities it serves. Simply, we make lives better through connections. We give people options for traveling to and from all the places they need or want to go. In order to demonstrate our relationship to our communities, our relevance to those we serve, and our wider connectivity to Colorado in general, we developed the Colorado Proud social media campaign to showcase the many influential and remarkable figures who made and continue to make Colorado the great state that we are proud to call home. In some instances, these individuals and events had/have significant impact not only across the state but in shaping and activating policy and change across the country.

Results Impact: To honor the "expeditionary" nature of this initiative, and the premise that we were taking readers on a journey of discovery, we designed Colorado Proud posts to resemble postage stamps. These came complete with visa or entry stamps similar to those you would see on a passport, denoting the campaign name with the individual's birth date or date of the event. Design featured bright colors and patterns complementing the subject matter. From launch in February through November, the Colorado Proud campaign ran across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn, registering 161 posts, 260,941 impressions, 5,500 engagements and an engagement rate of 2.1% per impression. We posted extended profiles of each subject to RTD's News Stop, an online informational repository on our website.

Why Submit: RTD's Colorado Proud social media campaign was submitted and should win because it successfully engaged and educated our social media and web audiences on the important historical figures and occurrences in our state that made and continue to make Colorado a great place to live. By showing these connections to our history, and celebrating people and events from all industries and walks of life, including doctors, entrepreneurs, activists, civil service, and more, we reaffirmed our relevance, reinforced our own link and investment to the communities that we serve, and affirmed our commitment to making lives better through connections—to places, history, and each other. In the process, we demonstrated that transit is a vital foundation for our community.