TBARTA Marketing & Communications Campaign for Envision 2030, the Future of Transit in Tampa Bay
Target Audience: The target audience is residents and workers in TBARTA's (Tampa Bay Area Regional Transit Authority) five-county Gulf Coast Florida region: Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco, Manatee and Hernando counties. This includes the cities of Tampa, St. Petersburg, and Clearwater.
Strategy Objective:The Envision 2030 Marketing and Communications Campaign encouraged public participation the RTDP's development while simultaneously educating and promoting the benefits of regional transit. We took a multi-pronged approach that included branding, website development, social media outreach, video, earned news media, paid media, advertising, email updates, and public surveys, in addition to making 40 public appearances and project presentations throughout the year-long campaign. Details of each tactic, along with samples and deliverables (such as survey results, impressions, etc.) for all program activities can be found in the attached Public Involvement Summary.
Situation Challenge: Tampa Bay is a region of many communities, but public transit is locally-based and fragmented, limiting transit mobility to within each county's borders. Unlike other major metropolitan regions of similar size, Tampa Bay does not plan, operate, finance or brand transit regionally. This has led to increased transportation problems and stymied the region's economic growth. In 2017, TBARTA was formed as a special five-county state district to address this issue. Our first task was to develop a Regional Transit Development Plan (RTDP), which we branded "Envision 2030," and educate the public on benefits of investing in world-class regional transit.
Results Impact: This campaign was successful as it resulted in approval in June 2020 by the TBARTA Board of Governors, an important first step in RTDP development. Along the way the campaign was able to generate significant earned media, both locally and nationally, on television, radio and in print. Details of that can be found in the attached Public Involvement Summary. But most notably, we believe the campaign to have succeeded because of the input it was able to generate from the public during the RTDP's development. Envision 2030 is a regional transit plan for our people, and through this campaign we were able to not only inform, but also capture and incorporate their feedback and priorities.
Why Submit: This entry is worthy for two reasons. First, for its quality and comprehensiveness, which includes a wide-ranging use of both traditional and digital media over a 12-month period. Educating the public on transit's benefits, while also listening to what people want, was a primary goal of the Envision 2030 campaign. The second is the urgent need for regional transit in Tampa Bay. TBARTA sees transit not just as a way to improve our overall quality of life, but also key to greater economic prosperity by making more jobs accessible to more people. The reduced travel times projected by Envision 2030 are estimated to increase jobs accessible within a 60-minute transit commute by 50,000. Building that knowledge and generating project support requires effective marketing and communications.