Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label transportation. Show all posts







A simple smart advertising campaign can go a long way towards converting drivers to riders.
Luck led me to this posting on sustainable urban transportation blog, The City Fix.

One campaign in particular caught my eye - the comparative, good vs. bad, cars vs. buses Go Metro ads made their point with clarity and immediacy. I went hunting for the rest of the campaign and found a treasure trove at another blog Long Winded and Proud.

Check out the Naughty vs Nice t-shirts they distributed to baristas - a lovely grassroots touch.

Images via The City Fix and Long Winded and Proud.
Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2010.

Creative Commons Licence
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence.



From time to time Pushing Buses happens on a link or nugget of information or page that just happens to help us all push buses - or trains or LRT. This simple interactive page from the outstanding online mag GOOD, shows us the difference of between the impersonal car-centric streets of the past and the vibrant people-focused streets of the future. Every transit planning site should be able to illustrate the benefits of transit as effectively. This one really rocks my boat. Click here to get the full experience.


Image via visualizeus
Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2009


This 1999 poster from the Underground's advertising archives shows that great brands weren't born yesterday.

An evocative precursor to the now well-established Making London Simple positioning, the poster makes the case for the Jubilee line with a single, intelligent sentence and great big serving of graphic wit.


Designed by Michael Johnson for the London Transport. From the collection of London Transport Museum.

Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2009
All creative work shown is the property of its copyright owner(s).


#3 in my series of Transit Logo Posters. This one's a collection of bus transit logos from around the world - and by no means is it the most comprehensive. As always, if you'd like a high resolution version (for free) write to me here.

Article, poster and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2009
All logos and trademarks shown are the property of their owners.



In the advertising and media section of today's New York Times, Stuart Elliot features Acela's brand new campaign. In the wake of Amtrak's high-profile celebrity endorsements from the likes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden, its high speed rail service, Acela, is stepping out smartly and reminding fliers and drivers of the creature comforts afforded by rail travel.

The commercial, by Arnold DC is slick; high production values are evident throughout. Though mass transit needs all the help it can get in gas-loving North America and while I'll put my money behind the morality of the common good any day, I have to be honest: good solid marketing? Yes. Mind-blowing creative? Nope. Pull down your skirt Arnold. Your briefs are showing.


Image from Amtrak's Acela campaign produced by Arnold DC, via the advertising and media section of the New York Times.
Article and blog, copyright Gavin Barrett 2009

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About the ideawallah

Gavin Barrett is Owner/Founding Partner + Chief Creative Officer, of award-winning Toronto agency Barrett and Welsh. In pursuit of big ideas he has: nibbled on pigs' ears (not on a live pig at the time); gone elephant-back in the Thai jungle (no elephants were hurt); gambled in a Macau casino (was utterly destroyed). His ads: have run in 35 countries, helped elect prime ministers, attracted the ire of the lawyers for Dolly the clone sheep, drawn an angry crowd in Lagos, have been studied in business texts in Canada and India and received derisive mention in a John Irving novel. His poems: can be found in Penguin’s anthology of 14 contemporary Indian poets, Reasons for Belonging. He cannot: sing.

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