SEQUOIA SHUTTLE


An easy, environmentally conscious way to get people to enjoy the majesty of the giant Sequoia trees of Sequoia National Park. Sounds like an easy sell, right? Not quite.


The Sequoia Shuttle is a partnership between the City of Visalia Transit Department and the National Parks Service. The original idea behind the shuttle was to relieve congestion and pollution at Sequoia National Park by giving visitors the option of taking a shuttle from Visalia as opposed to driving their cars. While a great idea, most of the marketing efforts the first 2 years were focused locally which lead to inconsistent ridership and declining sales figures needed in part to justify this shuttles relevance.


When this project made it’s way to MMC, we saw things a bit differently; namely the great potential to advertise to other markets, such as the entire Central Valley, the state of California, International Travelers and “outdoorsy” people in general. Our support mediums included TV, National Magazines, Regional and Local Magazines, Web Advertising, Social Network Mediums, Newspaper, Bus Advertising as well as a strong PR campaign with multiple media interviews; all in English and Spanish. In addition, we partnered up with Amtrak California to develop a custom co-branded brochure located inside Amtrak California station’s ticket windows.


We quickly realized through research that when asked to name a National Park in California, people’s initial response was Yosemite; however, we also uncovered many unknown (or unrealized) facts about the Sequoia National Park. Getting people reacquainted with the park itself and showcasing the amazing things the park has to offer, along with the incredible price point, were the main focus of our creative campaign. We simplified these items with various “Fact” ads and displayed the $15 round trip price point on a road sign.


This campaign has been incredibly successful. For the same marketing budget as years prior, both sales and ridership have increased.

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