Challenge.

Transport for Wales posted a survey out to the public for their honest feedback, the responses… well they weren’t pretty.

“DON’T BOTHER”, “WALK INSTEAD”, “B*LL*CKS”.

50% of people thought travel in Wales was too expensive. 66% of them said the network was unreliable.
And 40% said travelling on the network was an unpleasant experience. That’s quite the mountain to climb if you’re trying to take the worst rated transport network in the UK and make it into Wales’ favourite way to travel.

Solution

So we decided to do what so many other struggling networks across the UK fail to do… admit that things weren’t perfect.

Using something called the Pratfall Effect, we would try to get customers to start feeling warmth towards the brand, by owning the mistakes openly and then showing what Transport for Wales are doing to address them. A refreshing strategy that ditches the vision of a transport utopia in favour of a more honest approach.

We created a campaign made up of three distinct TV ads and various OOH executions, with employees who work on the network at the heart – showing inherently good and tenacious people, that will never simply give up. Just the type that you need when things don’t always go to plan.