Christmas - love it or loathe it, it is traditionally a time of fun and festivity, with the countdown a combination of manic partying and frantic present buying for the majority of us.
Local councils, however, rather than winding down and focusing on fun and spending in the run up to Christmas, have more weighty matters on their mind. With a significant number of people at their most vulnerable in the festive season, councils can find themselves at their busiest at this time of year, endeavouring to communicate vital messages to their communities at large. The lifeline services and helplines that councils offer cover a range of “seasonal” areas from debt repayment to health issues (including alcohol and drug abuse and overeating), advice to the elderly on winter fuel repayment - even key information such as holiday refuse collection and recycling service dates. And as Ticketmedia www.ticketmedia.com is discovering, for many councils bus ticket advertising is proving just the ticket to conveying important messages and information to their communities.

One such campaign, promoting helplines for domestic violence, was launched on 23 November by Enfield Council. 900,000 adverts in total will be issued on the back of bus tickets in the Enfield area. Sponsored by the Metropolitan Police, it has been created and delivered by the UK’s only bus ticket advertising company, Ticketmedia. For victims of domestic abuse, the prospect of Christmas can arouse fear and dread - unsurprising given that there is a dramatic increase of cases reported over this period.

Susannah Burbidge, Sales & Marketing Director at Ticketmedia, explains why bus ticket advertising is the ideal format for Enfield to publicise the domestic violence helpline service to its community - and in particular the more vulnerable individuals.
“There are two key advantages of this form of advertising for this particular campaign,” Susannah explains. “Firstly, it allows the council to communicate privately with the victims or those close to them, providing essential helpline numbers in a safe public environment. Secondly, as the advert appears on a ticket, which is a personal possession, it can be kept at no risk to the individual - unlike, say, a leaflet.”

Ticketmedia has worked with 491 councils across the UK on a wide range of awareness campaigns including health issues, rubbish collection dates, and even local elections, where the councils encouraged the community at large to go out and vote.

“The level of business from local government has always been good but it has increased 20% in regularity over the last year,” continues Susannah Burbidge. “This could be due to the decline of the local press or to the effects of the recession and the need to look for more cost effective and effective means of communicating to the community at large. The unique advantage of this kind of campaign, however, is that it is so precisely and uniquely targeted that the messages get in front of the right demographic.”

Ticketmedia has experienced 50% year-on-year growth for the last three years as advertisers seek a greater ROI. The company has launched 20,000 successful ticket campaigns to date, issuing 22 billion ticket advertisements across the nation. With its state-of-the-art printing machinery and experienced client services team, it is available to produce media plans to suit any advertising campaign on a national, regional or local basis.