Viva: Brand Launch Advertising

Share +
← Back to work
  • For the brand launch advertising  of the Viva bus rapid transit brand, we created a multimedia campaign that would change perceptions, attitudes and behaviour towards transit – even before service began. We put forward the idea that Viva was about transformation, not merely transportation. We positioned Viva as an attitude, an experience. Innovative, high impact creative produced high levels of audience engagement and dramatic results that are studied and talked about to this day. To read about it, click on the case study.

  • APTA Adwheel Award

  • The launch of Viva, the campaigns we created and the awards they won were covered by the Toronto Star and YorkRegion.ca and are published in best-practice case studies by CUTA and Industry Canada.

  • In 2005, independent market research following the brand and service launch campaigns, showed the advertising had delivered spectacular results. In just four months, unaided awareness of the brand and service rose from 12% to 53% and aided awareness from 39% to 86%, reaching 83% even with non-riders. By the time of the next research study in 2007 (after two years of advertising and outreach) brand and service awareness among non-riders had reached 100%. But it's not just about putting Viva into the minds of people - it's about putting people into Viva. Viva on its own saw a 26% increase in riders. We can say with some pride that since communications began, overall transit use has increased by 35% along rapid transit corridors. Ridership on the YRT/Viva system increased from 5.3 million in 2004 to 12.3 million in 2007 and then to 22.7 million in 2013. Viva has become a marketing case study and is promoted as a best practice exemplar by CUTA, APTA and Transport Canada.