30 March 2004

Scottish Marketing Awards 2004

Against stiff competition, SPT was absolutely delighted to be awarded a commendation at the Scottish Marketing Awards 2004 ceremony in Glasgow on 29 March, and runners up in the large organisation class, to the overall winner of the 2004 event, the Grand Prix award presented to VisitScotland. The award was presented by Ian Reid, General Manager British Airways, UK and Ireland, to Douglas Ferguson, Director of Operations, SPT and Hilary Howatt, SPT's Policy Development Manager.

The award was based on results from a successful marketing strategy anchored on SPT's objective of increasing public transport trips by 25% by 2011. This will be achieved by ensuring adequate infrastructure and services are in place, and by persuading the public of the benefits of public transport.

A three pronged approach ensued, developing a more focussed communications strategy with SPT's agent, The Bridge and media buyer Feather Brooksbank plus market research carried out by MRUK research. This produced the following results:

• Prompted awareness of SPT rose from 52% to 90%
• Understanding of what SPT did increased from 3% to 37%
• 45% of the total sample remembered the marketing slogan of SPT 'joining up journeys'
• Spontaneous advertising recall increased from 6% to 25%.

SPT Chair Councillor Alistair Watson said:

"I am very pleased that SPT has been given this commendation, and on the basis of the overall aim of SPT, of encouraging modal shift to public transport. This is the challenge to the organisation and shows how we all pull together in our communication strategy alongside our business partners, The Bridge and Feather Brooksbank, in delivering our message clearly to the travelling public. The energy and effort of the communications team in SPT has clearly shown that we can make a difference in a short time frame."

Brian Crook, Director of The Bridge said:

"We're delighted that our work for SPT has shown such promising results so quickly. We are less than a year into a three year communications strategy and it is great that we are already seeing a tangible return on investment."

ends