Ugobus – more than just a journey

When Essex County Council needed to rebrand its community transport service and recruit drivers, it used the power of authentic storytelling and user insight to deliver a small campaign with a big impact on people’s lives. The Ugobus – more than just a journey rebrand and recruitment campaign was awarded a bronze at the 2019 Public Service Communications Excellence Awards.

View all Communications support articles

The challenge

Essex County Council’s in-house minibus fleet and team of drivers deliver vital transport services for Adult Social Care, Special Educational Needs (SEN), schools and residents throughout Essex. The service faced several challenges – from ensuring that it breaks even, managing an ageing fleet, a brand that had limited appeal and increasing, unsustainable agency driver costs.

The solution

To tackle these challenges, we invested in a new bus fleet, which provided an opportunity to rebrand the service to appeal to a broader customer base. We developed a new driver training offer, including the added value incentive of free D1 licence training, to attract prospective drivers. We won a competitive in-house bid for our funding enabling us to develop an innovative and targeted recruitment campaign.

Ugobus lady Driver Essex CC

Research and user insight were at the heart of our strategy, branding and campaign delivery. We talked to our customers and they told us that the old brand name, Community Link, caused confusion with other Community Transport schemes and the perception that the service was only available to a limited range of customers, i.e. older people or passenger with Special Education Needs.

We developed the Ugobus value proposition through a series of brand development workshops. We engaged with internal colleagues, fleet drivers, current users and young people, working collaboratively with them to choose a new name. They voted for their preferred logo, telling us that it portrayed an image of professionalism, positive reputation and a feeling of trust.

When we reviewed the profile of the existing workforce and those who had applied in the past, we saw that we should be recruiting younger drivers. Armed with this insight, we focused on younger drivers who might not all have the D1 category licence, allowing us to use the training offer as a hook. We also learned that we needed to recruit people with the ability to connect with our passengers, demonstrating a caring and compassionate approach.

It’s here where our story comes to life. What better way to demonstrate the benefits of working for Ugobus, the importance of the service and the difference it makes to our residents, than the drivers themselves. Our Ugobus drivers became ambassadors for the service, amplifying the campaign’s key messages and communicating our proposition.

We delivered an integrated campaign leveraging targeted above-the-line and digital advertising, including broadcast radio, paid search (PPC), leaflet distribution and paid social media. The Ugobus webpage content was refreshed and optimised for SEO to maximise interest and application conversion. 

The impact

Our organic social media posts on Facebook and Instagram, reached a total of 51,838 people and generated 340 link clicks. Caring and compassionate messaging produced the best results on Twitter, whereas a more informative and direct approach worked better on Facebook. Paid social media generated a higher number of link clicks (1,399) and reached a total of 415,874 users.

PPC activity generated a high number of impressions (4,936) and clicks (305). The ads performed well above the industry standard average (2 per cent) with an average click through rate (CTR) of 6.18 per cent.

Ugobus driver Essex

In terms of the impact of our communications, previously on average five people applied per advert posted. Throughout the ten-week campaign period this increased to 21-25 per advert posted, an increase of over 200 per cent (91 total applications) and the vacancy rate also reduced from 28 to 14 positions. This success demonstrates the value and accuracy of the insights which led to our targeting.

Agency spend reduced by 53 per cent, compared with the first three months of 2018/19 and agency staff usage reduced by 80 per cent since May 2018.

Why it worked / how we’re sustaining it

Although our initial brief was clear – to rebrand the service and recruit drivers, it became clear that there was more to this story. It was about bringing to life the individual stories of Ugobus drivers and how they make a difference to the residents of Essex. It was a story about helping communities stay connected and reducing social isolation across the county.

Research and user insight ensured that we created a new brand that was inclusive and engaging for communities. The use of driver advocates meant that our storytelling was authentic and demonstrated the key values of the service.

Ugobus driver Essex CC with kid

As well as an improved recruitment model that is consistent with industry standards and encourages employee retention, the recruitment campaign was such a success that a second phase of marketing activity was planned.

Lessons learned

A key learning was that targeted digital advertising (paid Facebook and PPC) were more effective (in terms of generating clicks throughs to the Ugobus web page, reach and engagement) than above the line advertising (e.g. local commercial radio) and therefore those channels will be optimised for future campaigns. We also learned the value of using customer and employee insights to deliver an authentic and effective campaign.

Contact: Maria Dixon, Senior Campaigns Adviser at [email protected]

Links to relevant documents: Listen to our Ugobus Manager and dedicated drivers, speak passionately about the difference they make in people’s everyday lives.