Take a Trip

Target Audience: The target audience for RTD's Take a Trip campaign 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:Through a mix of social and digital media and PR activities in English and Spanish, we developed a campaign that launched in October 2021 to invite people back to transit by showcasing all the places RTD connects and all the possibilities of transit, while reiterating our cleaning protocols, safety, and environmental attributes aligned with people's comfort levels as the pandemic continued to morph. Backed by research from our customer panel, our ads featured close-up, slice of life vignettes in full color, with modern type, an array of destinations, as well as the transit used to get there. Our goal was to drive ridership now and in the future by reminding people of our endless destinations while acknowledging varying comfort levels for taking public transit at this time.

Situation Challenge: RTD moves people. Customers are the lifeblood of the agency. While ridership significantly declined due to the pandemic, nearly 60 percent lower than average, we were encouraged to see modest increases in ridership as the region began to reopen slowly and ebb and flow with the variants. We believed RTD had an opportunity to begin to increase ridership over time as we rebounded from beginning of pandemic-level lows to more sustained and elevated ridership with the recovery of the world. We also felt this was an ideal opportunity provide reminders of the positive social and economic impacts we have to the region we serve.

Results Impact: From launch in October through Dec 31, this digital-only, bilingual campaign achieved 10 million impressions and an impressive click thru average of .14% from paid efforts for high engagement with the RTD Trip Planner. Ads were served to specific targets—transit users, commuters, environmentalists, visitors, and users of major transit apps. Geofences were placed around rail stations and sports, concert, and entertainment venues. 91% of visitors from this campaign to the RTD website were new. On social channels, we had 48 organic posts with 110,879 impressions and 1,749 engagements.

Why Submit: RTD's Take a Trip campaign was submitted and should win because it successfully conveyed the advantages, destinations, protocols, and possibilities of public transit within the landscape of a global pandemic. The wide variety of destinations, images, and routes displayed in the campaign, along with its digital only nature—in step with how people want to receive their information—served to respectfully remind people of the possibilities of RTD if and when they were ready to return to transit, at their own time and comfort level. Presently, our service, which was down approximately 60 percent at the height of the pandemic, has returned to approximately 70 percent, due in large part to efforts like these, in step with the changing health concerns within our community.