'No Place for Hate' Campaign

Target Audience: A broad audience that includes all Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) transit customers, current employees, the community as a whole and finally the Asian American Foundation's target audience which is more on a national level.

Strategy Objective:MARTA partnered with The Asian American Foundation to support Stop Asian Hate Day of Action on Friday, March 26, 2021. No Place For Hate messages ran on digital billboards at three (3) MARTA rail stations for 30 days, and messages of support for Asian-Americans were shared on social media using the tag #StopAsianHate. People were reminded of tools MARTA has in place if anyone feels unsafe or sees something that doesn't feel right. They could notify MARTA Police either in person, via the See & Say app , or by picking up a blue phone at any rail station. The CEO/GM, Jeff Parker, sent a message of MARTA's support through the following statement: "There is no place for discrimination or racial targeting of any kind on our transit system and we're proud to support this effort. All are welcome.

Situation Challenge: This effort came in response to the murders of eight people, six of them Asian women, at day spas in Atlanta on March 16, and after an increase in anti-Asian sentiment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. We were given a unique opportunity to work with MTA and they were gracious enough to share their graphic and text in a show of unity against hate. Their graphic was very MTA specific, so we wanted to create a graphic that represented Atlanta.

Results Impact: The campaign helped to educate our target audience about the problem that Asian Americans were facing in Atlanta and nationwide. It is helpful to show just how far and wide the #StopAsianHate went when searching the hashtag on Facebook (FB), it populates to Hillary Clinton's March 26, 2021 post which included remembering the 6 Asian women who were killed in Atlanta. This post got 11K likes and 476 shares. It also reminded users about our See and Say app and introduced and taught people that we take safety seriously and MARTA is here for everybody. We saw 53 likes and 10 shares via social media. We also saw over 100 See and Say app downloads in March and April. In our MARTA Police Dept. December 2021 Newsletter, Chief Kreher noted a 20% decrease in Part 1 crimes from the previous year.

Why Submit: We are proud of this campaign for our ability to be nimble (note, this was a one-day turn around), while being thoughtful to the aesthetic and use of color theory for the best psychological impact. This campaign shows a great example of how our mission statement guides us and how we can take action to match those words. MARTA's mission is to strengthen communities, advance economic competitiveness, and respect the environment by providing a safe and customer-focused regional transit system. This was important for us to let our customers know we care about them and their safety and will use our voice to help bring awareness and let people know we stand with the Asian community and there is no place for hate.