The quiet yet very noticeable Septa advertisements around the city are set to come down in the middle of June before the expected millions of tourists arrive for busy season.
The “Septa Etiquette Campaign” appeared seemingly overnight earlier this year in February. The transit agency is expecting its riders to catch on to the advertisements to remind them of what is supposed to be deemed as lawful and cooperative behavior, in a joking manner. Septa propaganda, one might call it; Swell, the creative agency behind design and language and the Intersection who sell the advertising on their system.
Why the Ads?
“We’ve gotten a few inquires, but not a ton about this campaign, we didn’t send out a press release we kind of it wanted it to be organic,” said John Golden, Senior Press Officer at SEPTA Transit.
According to Golden, one of the main reasons for going with this campaign was the FIFA World Cup coming, the MLB All-Star Festivities, the Semiquincentennial celebration, and all of the events that could put Philadelphia both on a global stage, as well as under a microscope.
The idea of this campaign was to address the persistent friction with the ridership about being courteous, “we wanted to go with a friendly nudge, as opposed to a bureaucratic scolding from a big bureaucratic agency. Reminding folks in a ‘witty’ way that certain behaviors on septa are unacceptable,” said John Golden.
Some examples include smoking on the train, talking loudly on your phone, not having your backpack on the seat for others to sit, not fighting on the train or blasting loud music. None of these really being major crimes but in SEPTA’s opinion these examples are more than enough to make someone else’s commute more challenging day to day.
According to the Marketing Director at SEPTA, the campaign cost about $60,000 dollars. Interestingly enough last week SEPTA announced a crackdown on student fare evasion, in which if students are caught not paying the fare this may result in students now being issued a citation and possible criminal charges. All of this in an attempt to recoup “lost funds” the transit agency is claiming its losing from fare evasion. This is all a part of the SEPTA trying to get its act together.
In regards to the campaign, Golden relayed that in SEPTA’s investigation of how to approach a change in behavior, the focus was to appeal to younger demographic ridership. Their way of carrying this out was by meeting people at street level, by making these advertisements appear at bus stops, train clock screens, trolleys, regional rail, in addition to bus shelters, and train platforms along the wall that runs with the track. The advertisements attempt to meet folks at eye level, making them unavoidable, but witty. The idea was to see an advertisement, and hopefully be reminded to move your bag to make space for another rider.
A lot of the quotes and language from the advertisements we are seeing are from SEPTA rider complaints, feedback, and the filed customer service complaints, these mixed in with creative direction from the agency Swell.
12 years ago there was a similar campaign, called the “Dude It’s Rude” campaign, which were short advertisements reminding riders to adhere to Septa’s transit behavior, but that was the last time the transit agency had sought out a very specific campaign to reach its ridership. At this point in time Septa is attempting to make its rider comfortability and safety one of its top priority, and these unavoidable advertisements are the start of testing how keen riders will be to change.
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