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Marketing firm chosen for Kansas City streetcar line
Relying on a outside contractor to market a public conveyance to the public who is paying for it for $18,000.00? Color choices? A name? It makes me wonder what sort of intellectual resources the transit agency lacks. None of this on the surface seems like rocket science. Will any of this make a significant difference in relation to these choices that are simply surface dressing ? The best name they could come with was MAX? Maybe BURT? Or ERNIE? The whole contract seems wasteful and unnecessary.
Matt
Respectfully, Coke does not require taxpayer support and using them as an example I see as mixing apples with oranges. I also submit that the concept has been sold already and if the ongoing success of other light rail lines is any indication, the necessity for commercially marketing it is superfluous. The best indicator of success will be word of mouth from the ground up as well as it’s routing and operational success. In this case marketing is not a make or break option to insure usage. It is more likely to be able to speak for itself in terms of convenience of use. I suggest any bright color will do as the more visibility the better as the interurbans soon learned. You may be right of course, but I have my doubts its worth 18K as far as verifiable results are concerned from it.
$18000 not a lot of money unless your design team sends in ideas like Fresno Area Rapid Transit or the replacement Fresno Area Rapid Commuters Express. No it’s not rocket science but does take some thought. And getting it wrong has consequences
Advertising a street car line is a complete waste of time and resources. It’s like advertising a bean field to deer living next to the field in question. There are only two types of users of a street car line. Railfans that will ride most anything running on steel wheels is group one. The second group are those people with the origin and destination of travel being at two points along that line. For everybody else, it serves no purpose.
@Bruce: The fact that the Streetcar is subsidised is all the more reason to get it right and minimize that subsidy. Coke doesn’t advertise because they like to support the media companies, they advertise because it delivers a return on their investment.
Mr. Duensing
Does Coke spending millions on a super bowl ad show a lack of intellectual resources at that company? I’m betting there’s a reason that marketing is a multi billion dollar industry.
Most people only have experience with streetcars through their grandparent’s european postcards, or a trip they took to San Francisco 15 years ago. Things have changed a little bit, and people need to see what the benefits are or they will continue to just drive. They need to be SOLD on this, and marketing firms are a lot better at that than government agencies.
$18000 is not a lot of money when you’re not paying for it.
I agree that this seems like a total waste. Hiring a marketing firm for public transit is like hiring one for the street in front of your house. Its there and the people who live near it will know about it and use it if they want to.
Trust me, I live in KC, and this firm is going to earn every penny of that 18K dragging these folks out of their precious cars and onto public transit.
Any reason it cant just be called a “streetcar” line? Does it really need a brand? Look at New Orleans, they’ve run streetcars for 100+ years. Did they brand the streetcar named “Desire”? No, it was a name of a street. If the routes make sense, and are useful to people, the line will create its own name.
I don’t have a problem so much with the $18,000 for marketing. I’m wondering why the stops have to be every 2-3 blocks? 18 stops on a 2-mile line is ridiculous.
Well, the bus system there’s called MAX so why not just call the streetcar MAX as well. That’s only the simple thing to do.
The City of Kansas City, Missouri, hopes to greatly expand this streetcar system, by means of special property tax assessments through the areas where the lines will run. So they have some incentive to create attractive and cohesive marketing for the line. And $18,000.00 is peanuts in their $1 billion budget.
The line has already generated new development and investment in the short stretch where it will run, so there is an argument to be made that the line may pay off for property owners if and when they decide to sell their properties. Time will tell.
Of course, Mr. Guse will have us all in horse and buggies, trying to read by our kerosene lamps as we shun all forms of government. A nice thought in the spring, but it is zero degrees out right now, so I will get in my American-made car, turn on the heat, and drive to work on a heavily-subsidized Interstate highway that is 100% over its designed capacity and crumbling…
This short summary article (nine sentences in three paragraphs) omits a vast amount of relevant information. Yet several responders make value judgments based on a very limited amount of relevant information. It seems to me, that the comment feature serves a better purpose when responders provide additional information, ask questions, or just say, “This is interesting, lets hear more about it.”
In this particular forum, I don’t see the value of debating political philosophies, or evaluating other responders’ character or intellectual capabilities. But then, I guess that’s what freedom of speech is all about.
Zeb from NC