Effective Campaign or More Waste?

Another version of the ad with rider commentary. (via Jessica)


Via @JeffJeffrey This is a real @wmata ad at #MetroCenter, which essentially says, "Hey, our trains suck.Why not gamble on our buses?" http://pic.twitter.com/m7Vep8ev

From Jessisca:

Love this. Above a Metro ad for Metro Alerts at Gallery Place that says "Honey, I pushed our reservation back," and someone wrote "How about reliable service?" Perhaps instead of spending money on PR, which essentially concedes "Yes, our service sucks," they should spend that money and time just fixing the problems. The ad campaign is an admission of terrible service.

Speaking of PR. Remember Metro's other big PR blitz, Metroforward? It launched with great fanfare not even a year ago. At the time, Dan Stessel told the Washington Post Metro had spent $204,000 on the "intial work," adding:

“This is a low-cost, high-impact project,” Stessel said, noting that the way Metro figures it — its 1.2 million riders paid about 17 cents each for the work.

Who knows how much more of your money they've spent since then.

A huge part of Metroforward was to be a social media campaign, that led to the hiring of even more PR people to be "social media trailblazers."

The Metroforward blog hasn't been updated since March 14, and the last tweet from Metroforward was March 21. The Metroforward Facebook is slightly more active, but it's not the interactive destination many expect from Facebook, and many riders report having been blocked from commenting.

Other items:
6/22 Metro crash victims one step closer to memorial (Examiner)
Metro monitors key communications equipment that failed 24/7 (Examiner)
Moscow metro fires escalator chief (Moscow Times)
Another Post column on the Silver Line
Is the Silver Line being held hostage? (WaPo)