Community Transit's Rick Steves Video Series to Promote Awareness and Ridership

Target Audience: Our target audience for this campaign was Snohomish County residents, to both riders and non-riders. We included Snohomish County zip codes, and targeted adults 34 and older, who fell in at least one of the following audience segments: new recent movers, non-riders, parents, and people interested in local events.

Strategy Objective:We wanted to create an entire Destinations video series that would highlight some of the local gems and destinations that you can ride to. We also wanted to feature our new connection to Link light rail. We wanted to bring in a local influencer that would be a good fit to host this video series, and we were able to partner with travel TV host and author, Rick Steves, who is also a well-known advocate for public transportation. We shot five long-form videos in which Rick Steves boarded a Community Transit bus to highlight popular spots in Lynnwood, Edmonds, Mukilteo, local community events, and the greater Seattle region, now accessible with our new connection to Link light rail. These ran in digital media, paid social, and our organic channels.

Situation Challenge: 2024 was a transformative year for public transit at Community Transit, and the Puget Sound region. At Community Transit alone, we launched our newest BRT line, Swift Orange, and had a major network change following the launch Link's light rail extension to Snohomish County. We needed a way to highlight and promote our services in a way that would get noticed. We also knew that because there was going to be a lot of communications about these new updates to transit services around our region, we needed to have different ways to grab people's attention and keep Community Transit top-of-mind and drive ridership.

Results Impact: This video series garnered over 7 million paid impressions over the course of seven months. It received great engagement, with over 17K clicks to our website. - Community Transit has seen a 24% increase in ridership year-over-year. - Our Paid Social data showed that this series appealed to an older audience. Website data shows that we've increased active users in the following age brackets, while active users in all other age brackets stayed relatively flat: o 45-54: 15% increase o 55-64: 22% increase o 64+: 25% increase - We've seen great user interest from Organic Social channels, with over 7K engagements. - This video series garnered earned media, with an estimate of over 2.6 million total online and print impressions. Publicity value from this video series is estimated around $35K.

Why Submit: The partnership with Rick Steves was a unique collaboration. Rick Steves is well-known for his travel series and love for public transit and bringing him in to host our Destinations video series was a perfect fit. This was an incredible brand-building opportunity for Community Transit, and a nice way to feature the communities and destinations that people can ride our services to. This video series stood out during a time where our region was inundated with messaging about transit news and changes. It received great engagement, garnered positive sentiment for our agency, and generated more interest from the older adult audience segment. The earned media from this was an unexpected bonus! Overall, this video series was a huge success for our agency, and we were thrilled with the results.