BART Communications unveils new campaigns to complement ridership recovery
With focus on rider experience and community engagement, especially younger demographics, BART Communications unveiled new campaigns to help complement BART's ongoing ridership recovery efforts.
BART Communications will be focusing on several areas in 2023 on several fronts: minimizing rider pain points through communication; brand storytelling; social media strategy; safety communication; and community engagement. Notable campaigns include launching a Rider Tip video series to educate riders; wayfinding decals at stations; a youth short story contest; and branching into new online platforms such as Twitch and TikTok.
The unveiling, presented at the February 9, 2023 Board meeting, makes it clear that "while providing high-quality service is the best way to attract and retain riders" these efforts aim to educate the public, connect with communities BART serves and built brand affinity, especially with younger riders.
BART Communications has identified numerous pain points and frequently cited confusions in the rider experience. Online, they plan to minimize these through Rider Tips series and a Weather Guide available on bart.gov and social media. In person, wayfinding decals and line diagram maps will be provided at select stations.
BART Communications aims for more storytelling to highlight BART employees, history and technology; current Measure RR progress to showcase how rebuilding efforts benefit riders; and to work with local media for potential feature stories.
In a rapidly changing social media landscape, BART aims to pivot toward more educational, human-oriented and playful content. Shareable rider guides have been a recent success on social media, and BART plans to expand with more rider guides and videos. BART aims to reach the Gen Z audience with more playful TikTok content on our already popular account (which currently has more than 28,700 followers and 1.1 million cumulative likes). An upcoming anime project, with mascots designed by local artists to promote BART, is in the works.
BART Communications plans to expand its engagement into new frontiers, both in person and online. BART is connecting with local business communities, notably about our Clipper BayPass pilot. BART is planning a youth short story contest and a BART themed movie night and speaker series in Oakland later this year. BART aims to branch promotional campaigns into the live-streaming platform Twitch (which BART launched last year) and into the popular city building game Cities: Skylines with official BART content.