Case Study: Orbus Queenstown
This hyper-local campaign turned attitudes and got Queenstown on the bus.
With just two months from awarding the tender for a new $2 bus service to rubber on the road, the challenge was to shift mindsets from ‘drive everywhere’ to #betterbybus. Scope Media and our client Otago Regional Council, in partnership with QLDC and NZTA, tightly targeted the 20,000 Queenstown residents through a fully integrated PR and marketing campaign: if locals got on board the visitors would follow.
Though a small community, Queenstown is active on social. A social media influencer as brand ambassador, LOLworthy videos on pain points of driving, and face-to-face engagement, resulted in a doubling of passenger trips in the first month.
Scope Media managed the full delivery of the campaign – including ad creation, press releases, media liaison, digital marketing, social media management and stakeholder relations.
Some of our objectives and associated results:
- Create discussion and coverage to drive brand awareness for ORC and engagement between October 16 and November 30:
Aim: Positive coverage in traditional news media: 1 x TV, 5 x print, 10 x online
Actual: 1 x RNZ (Live on Morning Report and package for Checkpoint), 2x TV (supply footage to Newshub and TVNZ), 1x online TV news (South Today), 10 x print, 30 x online.
Positive online traditional media sentiment: 64.10%, Neutral: 17.95%, Negative: 17.95%
Positive social media sentiment: 78.68%, Neutral: 15.44%, Negative: 5.88%
- Drive organic social media reach (from October 16 – December 19):
Aim: 100,000 impressions, 2000 engagements, 1000 Facebook Likes
Actual: 373,560 impressions, 4576 engagements, 338 clicks and 1476 likes (from 0 as at October 16). Of this number, 1151 likes were organic, 336 were paid.
Client testimonial:
“As we prepared to launch out a new bus service in Queenstown, it was clear that we would need to work with locals to reach the locals. Scope Media crafted a highly targeted hyperlocal campaign for our new bus brand. By poking fun at the pain points of car travel in a humorous series of videos, bus travel was situated as a realistic and relevant transport option. Scope also helped us to engage with key influencers in the local community. With many stakeholders and a short timeline, it was a challenging project – but Scope were unphased by the very tight turnarounds and were responsive and willing to repeatedly go the extra mile, taking complete ownership for the project and its outcomes to produce a campaign we were all extremely proud of.”
– Eleanor Ross, Senior Strategic Communications and Engagement Advisor, Otago Regional Council
Click here for Orbus Queenstown coverage
