Travel South Yorkshire
“The city free bus is a brand new service for Sheffield, so it was vitally important that we created a highly creative and impactful marketing campaign to attract passengers to the service.
Rare's specialist knowledge gave us the insight and impetus to ensure that the launch of FreeBee was a huge success" - John Ansari, Marketing Manager, Travel South Yorkshire
The Client
South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive, the public body tasked with running and regulating public travel services in the region. SYPTE's public brand identity is Travel South Yorkshire.
The Challenge
Create and implement a brand identity solution for a new free bus service to operate in Sheffield city centre, targeting shoppers, parents and commuters.
The Solution
As an accredited marketing and design agency to SYPTE, Rare has conducted a range of work including branding and marketing campaigns and the production of the annual review and annual report and accounts.
For the Free city centre bus project we decided that strong, distinctive branding was required to convey the unique nature of the service, which itself is designed to encourage more visitors to come into the city centre by making passage within the city centre loop free and easy.
The Creative
At the heart of the creative was the firm notion that we needed to break with conventional bus branding for this service and to create a brand that was fun and engaging. From a number of ideas we finally agreed on the "FreeBee", which in turn was supported by the strap line "Catch the free Buzz". As well as creating the bus livery, the FreeBee launch included leaflets and posters highlighting service details and routes, and was further supported by fun giveaways and a treasure hunt supported by Hallam FM Radio in which the bus route acted as a treasure map.
The Results
The launch impact was so quick that target passenger numbers were achieved in one third of the projected timeframe. Service take-up has continued to grow and recently reached the point where Rare was asked to recreate the livery graphics, so that the service could be transferred to a fleet of larger vehicles!
