Translink's Wearing Is Caring campaign was created to raise awareness around the subject of wearing masks in transit, and help shift customer behaviour, in a friendly and visually engaging way.
The spirit of the campaign emphasizes that wearing a mask keeps others safe. Mask wearing is key to encourage the return to transit after the COVID-19 pandemic, where TransLink saw an 83% decrease in ridership. This campaign replaced the yellow acute awareness signage, installed throughout the transit system at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The campaign used TransLink’s owned media channels, transit reserve ad space across Metro Vancouver, social media channels, digital ads and media tactics to raise awareness of the initiative and encourage mask wearing across Metro Vancouver.
Following the campaign launch, the influencer campaign asks key elected officials to promote mask wearing with the hashtag #wearingiscaring to support the socialization of masks online and help ensure we see results offline – increased mask wearing on transit.
The TransLink in-house creative team used Adobe Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop to create the various aspects of this project.
The creative concept we chose is a step away from the formal organizational visual language. We did this to deliberately tell the story in a more human and touching way. With beautiful original illustrations, a slight cinematic tone and patterned appeal, this campaign is meant to touch hearts, not dictate the rules.
Did you know that the color pink is known as the color of universal love of oneself and of others?
Key campaign components included:
Print materials (outdoor posters, interior cards on buses, trains, etc.)
Bus Wraps
Media Event and Activation (mask giveaways, outdoor banners, giant mask for bus)
Digital Screen animations and graphics (transit system wide)
Social media messaging and engagement
Local influencer support (T-branded masks)
Mask production & giveaways (15000 masks with T logo)
Internal Volunteer Sewing Initiative
Campaign Key Visual in a series of three colours: pink, teal and mint.
Original illustrations created for this campaign.
Interior Cards inside SkyTrain cars and busses
Busses wrapped in campaign creative are ready to hit the road!
Plan your trip here, and please consider wearing a mask.
Digital Screen animations – for those waiting on the platform.
If you have never seen a masked bus... Now you have!
Official campaign avatar for social channels well received by our following. Email signature – to engage Translink employees and spread the message across our organizational network and business partners.
CAMPAIGN IMPRESSIONS
Between June 8 to July 3 the campaign generated 48,127,421 impressions (print ads only).
We launched the campaign with a media event that had a media reach of 460,000 and the primary media was TV. The event generated 20 stories on the top media outlets in Vancouver. Overall the tone was positive
On launch day, between owned and earned posts sharing a photo of the masked bus on social media, there were close to 3,000 engagements (measured by retweets and/or likes) and it was shared globally, including to Germany, Turkey, Japan and the United Kingdom.
“Wearing is caring” topped our most engaged posts on our main customer-facing social media channels of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
On Instagram, the top two posts in the month of June were the “Let’s flip the switch on mask wearing” TikTok video and a photo of our bus mask-ot. Each post, about 10,000 impressions (number of times content was shown) and about 10,000 people reached (number of unique users content delivered to) against a follower count of 17,800 followers.
Did we just start a movement?
TIMELINE
COVID / Acute phase – CAUTIONARY YELLOW
March 11: Global COVID-19 pandemic is declared by WHO.
March 17: Signage up system-wide to remind customers to practice proper health and hygiene on transit. The headline was Working Together to Keep Transit Safe and asked customers to stay home when sick, give space, cough into elbow, avoid touching your face, with yellow-themed outdoor posters and signage, decals for physical distancing, digital screens, social media posts on all available channels.
COVID Tips 2.0 – CALM BLUE
To promote TransLink's Safe Operating Action Plan, we put up new campaign creative to remind customers to wear a face covering, stay home when sick, give space and several other health tips to help keep transit safe and moving. This message was presented across the system with a more calming blue tone. Inside all buses, skytrains, across the region with outdoor signage, decals, digital screens.
Masks – Wearing Is Caring – LIVELY PINK
Masks and Face coverings are proven to help stop the spread of COVID-19 when physical distancing is not possible.
To support a safe return to transit for customers, TransLink launched the Wearing is Caring campaign to ask customers to wear face covering when riding transit. Masks are not mandated British Columbia, but it was critical that we raise awareness and help socialize mask wearing in public spaces. To do so, we created a campaign that asked Metro Vancouverites to join the #wearingiscaring movement.
We launched the campaign with a media event that received extensive media coverage on TV with a media reach of 460,000. The event generated 20 stories on the top media outlets in Vancouver with an overall positive tone.
This event included a TransLink bus wearing a novelty mask, camera crews from major news outlets and street teams handing out free T branded masks. Over a 2 week period, TransLink handed out over 15000 reusable masks to customers through surprise and delight activations. Masks were also given to local politicians and influencers who posted photos with #wearingiscaring to help drive awareness.
Together All The Way!
Even YVR airport, the Vancouver international airport “paid homage” to our masked bus and posted photos of their control tower and plane in a mask. Sacramento Regional Transit District asked us to adopt the much-liked slogan. We have started a real movement!
Total impressions for the print campaign alone were 48,127,421 (this does not include social reach, Media or organic reach driven by social channels).
A local politician even posted a photo with Dr. Bonnie Henry (provincial health officer for the Province of BC) while wearing her T mask with the hashtag #wearingiscaring to her 10.5K followers, and the tweet received over 1.900 likes, 84 retweets and 45 comments. Great organic exposure!
And to conclude...
The Wearing Is Caring campaign is still ongoing, but we have seen an increase in mask wearing on the system since the launch on June 15. The campaign achieved its goals of raising awareness of wearing masks on transit, to demonstrate that TransLink is standing behind our Safe Operating Action Plan, to reinforce brand sentiment across the region and to positively impact the general public in this challenging time.
This campaign also demonstrated a unique collaboration between all departments at TransLink to pivot from our traditional efforts and promote an entirely new product to ensure the health and safety of customers is intact. The campaign brought the organization together as an opportunity to rally around a positive story in the media after many weeks of challenging news for the organization, the region, the country & the world. Although the pandemic is far from over, the organization learned a lot and will continue to find new and innovative ways to keep customers engaged and safe while riding transit.
