LA Metro is still in service for those who serve us
Target Audience: The target audience for this entry is the hundreds of thousands of people in LA County who rely on public transit to get to work along with other critical and essential trips. LA Metro runs the nation's 3rd-busiest transit system and prior to the pandemic averaged about 1.2 million boardings per weekday. According to our most recent customer survey in fall 2019, the avg. household income of Metro bus riders was $26,961 and 84% did not have access to a car. Metro rail riders had an avg. household income of $45,421 and 66% did not have access to a car. The point: many of our riders are rely solely on transit to get around and many reside in households below the federal poverty line. We wanted to let our riders know we'd be there for them during the pandemic.
Strategy Objective:The strategy was for the video to demonstrate that LA Metro was resolute in continuing to provide service during an extraordinary and unprecedented event. We thought the best way to show this was of striking images of our buses and trains continuing to run on streets that were otherwise empty. These, of course, are streets that are usually choked with world famous Los Angeles traffic.
Situation Challenge: This video was created after safer-at-home orders were announced for Los Angeles County and much of the region shut down. Our riders were concerned that Metro would follow suit and either greatly curtail or halt bus and rail service, leaving them with no way to commute long distances to work and other essential and critical destinations.
Results Impact: We believe the video — released on March 31 (prior to widespread mask wearing recommendations) — greatly helped allay fears that Metro would be shutting down. The video received more than 100,000 views across all social media platforms and was distributed nationally by APTA. With the pandemic surging again in the summer and again currently, we have been able to use iterations of the video to show our continued commitment to LA County residents.
Why Submit: We believe our "Metro is still in service for those who serve us" was the best ad in our industry that showed the critical importance of mass transit to society. As the images in the video explain, when so many people stayed home this year, the courageous frontline workers of LA Metro didn't stay home — they reported to work and did their jobs. And we were there, and continue to be there, for the people who needed us most — the health-care workers, the grocery clerks, the warehouse employees and so many others who still had to go to work every day to provide essential services to the 10.1 million people of Los Angeles County.