Advertise Streetcar
Upon first glance, Streetcar seems perfect for everyone. It's easy to see the benefits - a car that is conveniently near your house. You can drive it whenever you wish without having to pay tax, or to even buy a car. Seems perfect.
That is until we delve a little deeper. Hurdle number one is location - Streetcar is widely available...to those who live in London. This instantly shrinks our target audience down quite significantly.
Next, we have the price. Membership costs £90 per year, on top of this, you have to pay £8 for every hour that you use it. So if you're using it for one hour every day of the week, it will already cost you £56. Multiply by 4 and your total monthly cost for one hour daily usage is £224. Multiply that by 12 and you're paying £2,688 (plus £90) is £2778 for one year with Streetcar & the furthest you're going is the other side of town and back.
It would be ridiculous to use Streetcar as your main mode of Transport, that is, unless, you rarely leave the house.
We can divide London into groups, when we take transport into consideration.
1 - There are people who don't own a car and don't intend to - they use public transport or ride bikes.
2 - There are people who do own a car yet still use public transport.
3 - There are people who drive everywhere.
They are all content with their current transportation status. The only people we can attempt to sway towards streetcar would be group number one, but they already praise the benefits of public transport.
We can say that all of these people live quite centrally to London. Go a little further out into the suburbs and you meet the two car families. Dad and/or Mum uses his/hers to go to work and Dad and/or Mum uses his/hers to do the food shopping, pick up the kids from school etc.
Either way, one car is not being used as much as the other. We thought this to be a good starting point - convince a two car family to become a one car & a streetcar family.
However, after a lot of research we came to the conclusion that even if you are using one car less than the other, you're still using it quite often or you would have wised up to it by now. It made no logical sense to pay more & use a Streetcar.
It was through this family approach that we reached an incredibly niche target audience of young mothers. We got round to talking about how much hassle it would be to have to take a pushchair everywhere - a conversation which stemmed from witnessing a poor woman struggle with a toddler during rush hour.
'Streetcar would be perfect!', we exclaimed.
'Young mothers shall never again have to struggle with Sainsbury's bags and tiny children!'. How we rejoiced.
But how to convince them? Surely this idea is so genius that all you'd have to do was tell them how silly they're being for not paying the vast price that Streetcar commands instead of a £25 a week travelcard?
No. We thought we'd convince them by making a club they can all be part of (tackling the loneliness of young motherhood at the same time, not just a pretty face!)
There would be Streetcar clubs arranged for young mothers. A sort of toddler group where they could meet, arrange shopping trips & the like, all sponsored by the kind people at Streetcar.
Accompanying this, there was to be a custom made 'baby Streetcar' - including sun protectors, baby seats & pushchair space in the boot. Even a 'babay on board sign' Car park spaces would be reserved for the 'baby Streetcar' near the entrance of shopping centres allowing utter convenience. Perfect.
It was when we reached this point that we realised maybe our target audience might be a bit off. Surely there was a wider dynamic for Streetcar than young mothers. Young Mothers!!
So we bought a cup of tea and a chocolate bar (I think it was a Twix), went for a walk , put off returning to the drawing board for at least 20 minutes longer than we should have, and re-evaluated our target markets.
We saw that our only other potential customer was the current public transport users. They are wise to the benefits of public transport & have no need to own a car.
But why would you want to own a car in the first place?
There are many practical reasons.
-You can go where you want, at any time, not restricted by the routes planned by TFL.
-You don't have to go on the bus.
-You can fit things in the back, especially after a large excursion to the supermarket or a spontaneous trip to IKEA.
But these reasons are boring. People already know this.
Our target audience already know this. The only time they travel during the week is to go somewhere - there is always a destination in mind.
Neither of us are from city backgrounds. Jess is from Bury near Manchester, and I am from Codsall, near Wolverhampton.
Where we are from, everybody has a car.
This makes sense at a practical level - public transport is less available in the country, and people may have to travel further to reach their workplace. It's more convenient.
But cars are not just a convenience to them.
- They are hobbies - 'going for a drive' is not an odd thing to do.
- They allow exploration - going to places that aren't necessarily on the map.
- They are babe magnets - girls love boys that drive. (It's true ;) )
DRIVING IS FUN.
The majority of our target audience are young. Older commuters tend to have a car. We can establish that they are professionals.
We want to communicate to them the FREEDOM and the FUN of driving.
We want to show them the joy of driving for the sake of driving.
So how do we do this?
Firstly, we realised we needed to narrow our target audience down even more - Urban young professionals doesn't say anything about anybody. Our streetcar will appeal to a certain TYPE of person.
It will appeal to a do-er. Someone that WANTS to get out at weekend, not someone who feels that they HAVE to. Someone that is often stifled/suffocated by a city lifestyle.
We developed a website which would create a platform for our young do-ers to interact with each other and SHARE experiences of their streetcar.
We realised that do-ers are sharers. We reached this conclusion after watching the Danny Boyle film '127 Hours'. The one where the man cuts his arm off. Rough.
Anyway, he documents his entire experience. Obviously, his circumstance was entirely different to any circumstance a streetcar user would get themselves into in England, but the fact that he took his camera along in the first place proves that he wants to keep and share his memories. Perhaps to just reflect on, maybe even to show off a bit.
The fact is that people like him exist. Do-ers and sharers.
The website provided Facebook-esque profile space, in which the customer would fill in their name, favourite place, favourite routes, current Streetcar mileage, post photos of their travels, a general space for interaction.
Another insight the website tapped into was 'driving music'. People have certain songs to drive along to. A feature of streetcar is the ability to listen to your own music.
On our website, Streetcar would allow users to suggest driving albums, or suggest playlists for users. It would also encourage users to share favourite tracks etc.
This website would create a database of suggested routes, places, things to see, things to listen to. Streetcar would take advantage of this user generated content and create monthly guides to be given out in newspapers such as the Guardian, gathering a larger audience and allowing them to see the benefit of Streetcar.
By now it was interim crit time, and we struggled with driving our audience to this website. We attempted to target our audience while they were stuck in rush hour traffic - waiting for the weekend.
Our strongest thought was a regular article in newspapers like METRO - hinting at experiences made enjoyable thanks to streetcar.
All very suitable ideas. But none of the FUN.
How can you possibly attempt to sell what is essentially a fun experience without having a FUN advert?!
Another interesting insight we discovered was that
owning a car is a commitment. You have to give it petrol, clean it, pay for it to run, etc etc.
Streetcar gives you the freedom without the commitment.
Freedom without commitment allows us to be a bit naughty with streetcar. We failed to make the link between this and our sensible Internet group.
So back to the drawing board (almost).
We wanted to keep our online Streetcar community, but focus more on the benefit of commitment, while being fun at the same time.
'Freedom without commitment' BEGS to be taken advantage of.
We thought of all the things that are fun to use, then give back when you've had said fun.
We thought of babies, dogs, men...
you have your fun - play with them, pet them, play and pet them...
then once you've have your fill, they start to cry, or shit or roll in shit in the park you can just ... give them back. Great right?
not being committed is great.
SO.
men...relationships. When you get a car you start a relationship. you COMMIT. and you can't really get out of it easily... like you couldn't really dump someone when their dog just died.
what if a person was in a relationship with a bus/tube and cheated on it (not committed) with streetcar
from the bus/tubes point of view - yea it's great but I ever see them at weekend, bit worrying/ I trust her?
tell the story from the cars point of view - yea it's great we have a casual relationship, just the ...perks.
streetcar members point of view - yea it's great we have a casual relationship, just the ...perks the bus/tube will never know, I feel mean but he's no fun. I like having him there to rely on but I want fun
This is a human truth, you want someone you can trust, rely on, will be there for you no matter what. But you also want that thrill. That fun and excitement of someone new.
so you want someone to rely on but they are a bit, boring.
It's like having a routine, you need one to keep things going but it's boring.
You're committed to your routine but it's fun to break it.
A big part of routine is your daily commute to work/uni whatever. You go on the bus/tube everyday. It's reliable, it turns up everyday, gets you to where you want to go...hopefully on time, you trust it. It does the job you need it to do. Your in a relationship (from 9 - 5 at least), your committed.
We don't expect people to break this routine why would you? It would cost more and might not be as efficient.
We want people to seek that thrill, to cheat on the bus/tube outside the 9-5
And know that you can go back to your routine of public transport.
So yeah it's like you have a steady relationship with a guy, you're married. He's there for you, nice blah blah but it's getting a bit boring but you don't want to leave him. You like having him there. What you want to do is go get with some stud and have a thrilling fling then go back to him.
do you cheat and have fun? or stick to your commitment and routine?
We want you to cheat
HAVE A FLING WITH STREETCAR
no commitment, break your routine, have fun.
Could we have someone giving them relationship advice?
Then the penny just dropped.
HOMER SIMPSON
There is a genius bit where Homer gives his dad relationship advice (to get with his wifes mum which is sick, but thats besides the point)
He starts saying what'ya gotta dooo is play it coooolll in a smooth voice. The whole room turns blue and it turns into a smooth jazz song.
It's SO funny.
And homer is SO convincing.
wait...
thats EXACTLY what we want to do in this advert.
So why not have a jazz man giving out relation ship advice, telling them to cheat, have fun, break their routine.
He'll be so smooth and witty and funny you'd do anything he says.
We want it to be really weird abstract jazzy and surreal.
We want parts to turn blue.
We want it to film with illustration over the top (blue bits and words)
could use 60s transactions ? wait not really jazz...
crazy ass patterns
really love the monsters inc intro
love the use of line detail
Saul Bass
He is a suave guy in a trilby and oversized suit.
Could be surrounded by smoke?
sounds like this
LOUIS ARMSTRONG
but SMOOTHER
when we say high hat beat we mean (8 sec)
We've done two ads that could be shown on TV and on BBC iPlayer and 4od
.............................................................
We went ahead and made the online driving profiles
this colour was disgusting, so we tried to make it look more 'jazz'
we used black, big block colour - in streetcar brand colours, shapes, jazzy font
You create an online profile with details about how many miles you've done in streetcar, your fave routes, fave driving song and how long you've been with streetcar.
You update your profile with routes you've done, pictures you've taken there and playlists you make on spotify to share with the other members.
The routes will link up with Google maps and playlists will link to spotify which other members can download and. The photos could link to blogspot?
It would create a massive database of great places to go a the weekend, how to get there, what it looks like and what to listen to.
It makes going for a drive or visiting somewhere more fun.
A monthly guide given out in newspapers such as the Guardian of the best routes, places to go to on the way, music to listen to on that route etc. Thus gathering a larger audience and allowing them to see the benefit of Streetcar.
This would hopefully encourage people to use streetcar to drive to more places and have more fun.
