Metro has hired an award-winning advertising firm for $1.2 million to help the transit agency improve its image. The transit system brought on Williams Whittle, based in Alexandria, earlier this month to help market the agency using traditional advertising but also possibly “guerrilla marketing” and “street teams,” said Metro spokesman Reggie Woodruff.
“Williams Whittle will assist us as we continue to explore ways to increase revenue and off-peak ridership and to more effectively promote Metro and the improvements that we are making,” he wrote in an e-mail.
That could mean “unconventional marketing” that directly engages potential riders, he explained. He could not provide any examples of what such direct marketing might look like, though.
A spokeswoman for Williams Whittle did not return a call for comment.
The transit agency already has tried to use social media, creating animated You Tube videos, starting a blog on transit planning and using Twitter to let riders know about service disruptions.
Metro has two people working in-house at the agency on promotional advertising, Woodruff said. And the agency has set aside $1.8 million for advertising for the year, Woodruff said.
Williams Whittle will get the bulk of the budget, able to spend up to $1.2 million in the remaining seven months of the fiscal year.
Metro sells advertising in its system, offering space to outside groups on its buses, columns, trains and even station floors. But it also sells itself to the outside world.
Last year, for example, it spent $739,000 to advertise its flagging bus services in local media outlets, even as it faced a $40 million budget emergency that caused it to enact a temporary 10-cent fare surcharge on riders.
The campaign touted the bus system under the slogan: “The new Metrobus. See how far we’ve come.” Bus ridership has continued to slump steadily, though, dropping 7 percent through October compared with the same period in 2009 after prior drops from 2008 levels.
