Changing travel behaviours across West Yorkshire.
Boosting active and sustainable travel (walking, cycling, wheeling, public transport), to raise awareness, increase app and ticket use, and encourage lasting behaviour change.
The brief (in brief)
Building on the momentum of Walk it, Ride it in Leeds, our challenge was to bring the campaign into the CA’s brand, expand and strengthen it across West Yorkshire, and deepen engagement, especially with diverse communities. We also had to tackle habits, safety concerns, low awareness of the MCard app and cycle schemes, and cost and reliability perceptions.
Our approach
Working closely with key CA stakeholders and partners, we undertook a discovery process to define audience attitudes and establish an effective creative and media strategy. Rooted in deep audience insight from surveys and managed online communities with West Yorkshire residents exploring everyday travel habit and needs, the creative strategy focused on highlighting the unexpected, positive, personal benefits of choosing active and public travel. From saving money to improving wellbeing – the key campaign message ‘Get more from your journey’ tapped into everyday motivations, and used bold, upbeat messaging and a vibrant, energetic visual style designed to stand out. By focussing on everyday wins and making the benefits tangible, the creative aimed to motivate and sustain behaviour change. Validation came through conducted qualitative and quantitive research with West Yorkshire residents across various sessions/platforms, exploring travel behaviours and testing the three creative concepts.
The important stuff
As the first multi-modal, integrated behaviour change campaign that’s still in progress, we’re already seeing some fantastic campaign engagement and with a change in perceptions around cycling, walking and riding a bus to follow. The impact on behaviour and attitudes, identified optimisations and feedback on creative in real-world settings.
intended to walk more (post-campaign research)
increase in app ticket sales
increase in awareness of the CA’s brand (post-campaign research)
people reached via Radio, OOH & Door Drops
We worked with real people from West Yorkshire to share authentic case studies, supported with subtitles, audio description, and sign language to ensure accessibility. Photoshoots and video content were captured in recognisable local settings, grounding the campaign firmly in the region. Hero photography formed the foundation of the campaign’s visual identity. By using genuine West Yorkshire voices and stories, we brought personality, reflected the diversity of our audiences, and shaped both the creative direction and digital media strategy.
We delivered a flexible, multi-channel campaign that combined scale with precision. Digital ads on Google, Spotify and social built broad awareness with local precision. Out-of-home, across buses, kiosks, rail, roadside and shopping centres, drove cost-effective reach in key postcodes. Hyper-local bus routes hit key audiences where it mattered most. Ad vans on commuter corridors cut through at peak times. Together, the mix turned scale into real, local engagement.
Diverse media drove West Yorkshire engagement. A central website hub linked audiences to campaign info, case studies, and local resources. Radio and digital audio hit broad and local audiences on Greatest Hits, Fever FM, DAX, Spotify, and Octave. Targeted door drops reached 93,000+ households with walk, cycle, and ride messaging. PR amplified reach with Yorkshire-wide and region-specific releases, local media outreach, and a launch event featuring the Mayor, bus providers, and case study representatives.