Challenge: 

 

Despite a huge investment in London’s buses, the public perception was that nothing had changed. All the communications about how buses had improved were being ridiculed in the press and on social media.

 

Solution: 

 

People are nostalgic when they talk about public transport, always remembering it (usually wrongly) as being more reliable and less crowded. We approached the problem by dramatizing the future with a distinctive retro visual illustration style. The resulting executions proved not only to be impactful as posters at bus stops but had huge stand out online.

 

The campaign was very popular – people actually stole posters from Adshels, promoting TfL to make them available for sale in the British Transport Museum, Covent Garden, where the designs were also used as motifs for gifts. It shifted public opinion too, with surveys demonstrating a dramatic shift in positive sentiment. The campaign was extended into short animations on the TfL and London travel websites and was also developed into a highly effective radio campaign. Unlike most TfL campaigns which are usually quite tactical, this campaign ran for over four years.

 

 

Creative team: David Harris, Peter West, Designer: Glen Chapman, Illustrator: Mark Thomas