Ipswich’s major shopping centre, Tower Ramparts, has turned to bus ticket advertising in a bid to increase the number of shoppers passing through its doors.

The strategic move reducing budget allocation in print and broadcast in favour of advertising on the back of bus tickets has reaped huge dividends for Tower Ramparts and its media agency RB Media. The one-month campaign delivered by UK specialist Ticketmedia was the most successful
competition Tower Ramparts has run in the past 10 years, resulting in an impressive increase in footfall and allowing for an unprecedented level of data to be captured for future marketing purposes. In short, it has been an unqualified success for Tower Ramparts and its 30 stores which include high-street favourites Top Shop, Warehouse, Miss Selfridge, Boots, Ernest Jones, Rymans, Vodaphone, Vision Express and new arrival Quiz.

Tower Ramparts was forced to take a fresh look at its marketing in January this year when Ipswich Borough Council closed the multi-storey car park servicing the centre for safety reasons. With some 1,100 car parking spaces lost, the immediate impact on the centre needed to be addressed: Tower Ramparts needed to find new footfall streams in as short a time as possible.

With people travelling by car having to find alternative parking locations elsewhere in the town, RB Media investigated public transport options. Almost all the buses in the Ipswich area end their journey just outside the shopping centre, so RB Media looked into bus ticket advertising as a possible solution to the problem. It then contacted Ticketmedia, the only company in that UK that produces and delivers bus ticket advertising.

“We needed to act quickly and effectively to produce a campaign in just three weeks ready to roll out at the start of February,” said Nicki Daldry of RB Media. “Fortunately, Ticketmedia has years of experience in doing just that – it has all the necessary print technology and media knowledge in-house to produce a targeted campaign in the very short lead time that we required.”

Working with the media agency, Ticketmedia designed the creative to put on the back of bus tickets. Simple yet effective, it invited passengers to enter a draw with the possibility of winning a number of prizes including £200 vouchers for Tower Ramparts. All the passenger had to do was fill in their name, contact number and email address, then post their entry form inside the centre. The data would then be added to the centre’s marketing database.

At the end of the month-long campaign, the post box was full to overflowing. Mike Sorhaindo, Centre
Manager of Tower Ramparts, said, “We are just delighted with the response we have received. Not only has there been an associated increase in footfall from this campaign but the excellent data capture will be invaluable for future marketing campaigns.”

Susannah Burbidge, Sales and Marketing Director at Ticketmedia, is equally delighted at the success of the campaign – although not surprised. “People shouldn’t underestimate the power of bus ticket advertising,” she advises. “It’s a highly effective means of targeting an audience as it reaches people at the optimum moment, often immediately prior to shopping and at a time when they are actively looking for distraction on their journey. So it’s no surprise, then, that message retention is regularly placed at over 70% by independent research studies or that it’s fast becoming the advertising medium of choice for retailers.”

Tower Ramparts and RB Media are so pleased with the outcome of their first campaign with Ticketmedia that they have adapted this year’s marketing plan to include bus ticket advertising. Nicki Daldry said, “Having analysed the results of this recent campaign, we are convinced of the value of bus ticket advertising as an integral part of our marketing operation. It is completely trackable, which helps us to achieve our objective of client-accountable marketing solutions, and it allows us to reach high levels of local people on a repeat basis whilst allowing us to trace and record responses.”

Over the last ten years, Ticketmedia has worked with a number of high street retail clients and shopping centres on a variety of campaigns including new products, store openings, Christmas planning, and other special store events. With consistently high success rates and a high ROI, bus ticket advertising is increasingly seen as an extremely powerful and effective tool by retailers.

Ticketmedia has launched 20,000 successful ticket campaigns to date, issuing 22 billion ticket advertisements across the nation. Ticketmedia’s specially tailored bespoke printing machinery andsophisticated route mapping equipment allow it to produce accurately targeted campaigns in a short lead time. With an experienced client services team and professional account management team also on board, it has the capacity to produce media plans for short or long run campaigns on a national, regional or local basis.