The people that market the Tyne and Wear Metro are in line for a top national award, after passenger numbers rose to their highest for five years.
The Chartered Institute for Marketing has named Metro as a finalist in the prestigious Team of the Year category, where it will compete with household names such as Direct Line, Standard Life and O2.
Marketing campaigns have highlighted the good value and convenience offered by Pop smart cards and student and season tickets, and featured a new friendly ‘Metro cube’ character.
The award honour comes after passenger numbers on Metro topped 40 million in 2015 – up 13% over the last two years and at their the highest since 2011. It recognises Nexus, which owns and manages Metro, jointly with DB Regio, which operates stations and trains on Nexus’ behalf.
Metro also achieves the highest possible rating for value for money from marketing campaigns, according to official Department for Transport ratings for the industry.
Kerry Leng, Marketing Manager for Nexus, said: “One in every eight passengers is new to Metro in the last two years. We have invested in attractive and innovative marketing campaigns to help make Metro the fastest growing light rail system outside London.
“Nexus is a public body and makes no profit from Metro, but every new passenger helps support the cost of running the service, while underlining how vital it is to the local economy.”
David De Ivey, Marketing Controller for DB Regio, said: “We’re delighted to have been nominated jointly for this award. To ensure the money we spend on media was used as efficiently as possible, we utilised emerging new technology to reach our target audience in their homes, tailoring messaging to speak to distinct groups of potential Metro customers.
“This approach was aligned with our overall strategy to boost awareness of the brand which we achieved by taking a number of high profile digital advertising sites on the main arterial routes in the region.”
Metro launched its first television adverts for more than a decade last summer, when it introduced the new Metro cube character.
Campaigns to communicate the benefits of smart cards have meanwhile seen every Metrosaver season ticket customer switch to the Pop card, while thousands have taken up the new Pop Pay As You Go card option.
And Metro has just announced a partnership with the Snow Dogs charity trail which is expected to see large numbers of people travel round Tyne and Wear to spot the giant painted artworks this autumn.
The CIM (The Chartered Institute of Marketing) Marketing Excellence Awards are an annual event created to highlight, celebrate and promote excellence within the field.
These provide individuals, teams and agencies from across the marketing industry with the opportunity to showcase their successes and the impact of their campaigns. The Awards are open to any organisation within the UK regardless of size, sector or industry.
Chris Daly, acting chief executive of CIM, said: “We’ve seen some fantastic entries this year and it is already clear that this will be a great representation of our industry’s hard work over the past 12 months. The finalists are varied, innovative and showcase a range of high quality campaigns.”