The Power of Branding...

Hi there and welcome to our first blog post and in this post we're discussing the power of branding we've seen different companies play around with branding bus services and in some cases keeping their vehicles in one standard livery allowing them to put any service they need to. 

Recently I've been looking at how different companies present their vehicles to the public through the use of liveries and it proved to be interesting looking at how each company has it's own strategy of using the exterior space.

I always see the exterior space of the bus as a moving billboard, it's how the company presents themselves to the public and their overall service. If the livery or exterior space on the bus looks 'scruffy' it begs the question whether the company care about their image and if faced with choice between a well presented vehicle or a 'scruffy' vehicle nine times out of ten the passenger would pick the well presented vehicle because noone wants to be seen on a 'scruffy' vehicle - well I know I wouldn't!

Leicestershire was notoriously known for it's confusing layout especially around City Centre bus stop and unattractive buses which played a part in the low bus use in Leicester. Kinchbus (a company part of Wellglade) was the only local operator in Leicester that tried to use new initiatives, identifiable branding and more appealing buses while trying to get more people to use the bus. 

(C) Paul Grant and National Bus Depot

Recently Kinchbus has upped it's game further by investing in a livery design making bus usage with Kinchbus more pleasing and investing in brand new 64' plate Mercedes Citaros which would be used on the Skylink Leicester service with the added extras of 4g free Wi-Fi, plug sockets, air conditioning and the increased frequency to every 20 minutes. The ticketing options that are available to the people of Leicester with Kinchbus is far more beneficial in terms of value for money - remember you get what you pay for! Not only have they invested into the services to get more people out of the car and into the bus as with most things that the Wellglade group do when they invest in new vehicles they had an event where they'd present their buses to the public allowing the public to talk to the managers about any questions they have about the bus service another great way of getting more people into the bus.

(C) Paul Grant and National Bus Depot

So, back to the power of branding! Branding is great for promotions as it can be very specific to the route itself rather than the network allowing there to be a unique selling point (USP) for that service in this example plug sockets on Rainbow and Rapid one the branding means it'll be used on either Rainbow or Rapid one making the plug socket a USP for that route getting more people on board that route. It also benefits the customer greatly as it makes buses more appealing, eye catching and something you'd be more interested in using because it's distinctive. Nottingham City Transport (NCT) uses a colour coded scheme that was introduced in 2001 which allowed customers to identify the colour to the area it serves for example Lime coloured buses serves Daybrook and Arnold. This is a great system for new users of buses as long as they know the area they want they are able to be identify the service they want by it's colour. Another part of branding which benefits the user is the vinyls that outline the route, to keep it consistent we're going to use Lime 58 which would show City, Sherwood and Arnold on either side making it more recognizable for potential customers to notice and know which service they want.

(C) Paul Grant and National Bus Depot

Let's compare this to companies such as First. First Bus is a company that puts buses within their fleet into one standard livery which allows them to move vehicles around as they please. Now, for nationwide company such as First Bus this works out better for the reason that they can be short of buses at any time and this allows them to make use of buses that may not be in use in other cities. Although we've seen First bus adapt their standard livery to accommodate some sort of branding this includes the City or County it operates in example in photo Worcester along the side in  original styling and colour aswell as the colour line and route number example Yellow 54.

Clearly there is advantages to both types of branding for local companies that operate in one City or County/region specific route, branding could possibly be the best way to present your buses whereas big nationwide companies will keep buses in one standard livery to allow the mobility of buses to wherever they need to be.

(C) First Midlands Facebook Page

Now let's look at the drawbacks to branding. I think the main one is the fact that sometimes a plague can hit the fleet and the only bus that's in the garage able to go out at that moment is shall we say for this example a Pink bus on a Green route which could confuse passengers who would be expecting a Green Bus when suddenly a Pink bus displays 8 Wilford Hill and drives past meaning you're going to have to wait for the bus behind. Next is, it's quite costly over the bus' life for some buses in Nottingham they've been in 2 or 3 liveries over their life which I know is far cheaper than purchasing new vehicles and means they can fully utilize the bus for however long it can stay in service for.

Of course there probably is more but right now I can' think of any further points to develop on, if you can think of any why not put them in the comments?

(C) Paul Grant and National Bus Depot

Let's finish of with the drawbacks to standard livery. Of course the main point has to be that when you roll something out you can't publicise it as much as you could if it was only going to be on a specific route when a bus has no branding it can be put on any route so they can't really grow a route with a USP without using some sort of branding, so buses will only get the 'standard' bits and bobs. Another being First bus' livery has became tired and is needing updating and to keep the consistency amongst the buses in their fleet they'll have to repaint all the buses in the fleet which can become very costly.

This is just naming a few I think this post has gone on for long enough now and has discussed the main points of branding and I have hopefully hit upon the main points.

(C) Paul Grant and National Bus Depot

I hope that you've enjoyed reading this blog post we hope to be hitting more topics as we go onwards and hopefully upwards.