Remember Erica Roe?

As Transdev Yellow Buses today launches its minor though significant summer network revisions, no one could deny that Transdev has done anything other than transform a once lacklustre municipal. The situation in which the former Yellow Buses found itself was far from ideal. Fatalism appeared to have crept in. TYB adopted a the four-track approach of a new brand, simplified network, easy access on core routes and marketing par excellence, generating a 40 per cent increase in ridership 2006-2009.

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It was just over 25 years ago that Bournemouth Transport tried something similar. Remember the late Ken Baily? He was even more famous a Bournemouth resident than Barry Doe is today (and perhaps Doe will one day also become a Freeman of Bournemouth).

The Baily Years

Baily was the bus-using sports & charitable champion who fronted the “Your Official Yellow Bus Catching Kit” campaign. Baily was both a local and national celebrity who self-funded his way around the world supporting England in whatever games were in the news. It was Baily who, using his Union flag, protected Erica Roe’s modesty before the police caught her during the infamous streaking incident at Twickenham in January 1982. Four months later, Baily exchanged his usual red John Bull suit & top hat for a yellow equivalent, to launch Bournemouth Transport’s new brand Yellow Buses (the name everyone used in any case).

The Baily Years meets Erica Roe (sort of)

“Catch the Yellows” was initially a £50,000 marketing exercise half-funded by Dorset council to do what TYB is achieving today. And it was more than moderately successful but, after a good run, complacency seemed to set in. Like TYB, the campaign focused not just on rebranding and marketing. It coincided with the arrival of 20 new (though perhaps not satisfactory) Marshall-bodied Olympians.

2CR DJs Caroline Verdon & David Perry aboard a Versa

Baily and “Catch the Yellows” swept aside the former A5 “toilet paper” timetables of the past. The new pocket A6 guides with their innovative messages and slogans had by the turn of the century given way to less individualistic publicity.

Today’s timetable

Cue Transdev for another shot in the arm. Rather than use the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra (erm, actually in Poole these days) as Yellow Buses had during the Baily years, TYB has broadening itself by employing the power of commercial radio DJs. It knows, though, that if all else fails, it can perhaps learn something from Erica Roe, the ultimate publicists...