transit rider engagement campaign
remote testing, marketing, technology, international study
Project lead, analysis, report writer
Bold insight
CHALLENGES
A technology company sought support from our team to conduct an exploratory study to understand user perceptions of an upcoming marketing campaign in partnership with Transport for London (TfL). Their main challenges were to grow the monthly tracked users in Great Britain by driving awareness of their mobile wallet payment option, and to move smartphone users that had access to their mobile wallet payment option but paid for their transit by tapping a physical card.
"How might we improve campaign messaging to boost engagement from london's public transit riders?"
Process
Our four main goals for the project were to:
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Understand riders' day-to-day payment practices
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Understand perceived value and alignment of the existing growth campaign
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Identify opportunities to convert wallet TfL riders
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Identify opportunities to convert riders using physical payment cards
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Our team conducted nine remote 1:1 in-depth interview sessions using a video conferencing tool. During these 75-minute-long interviews, we gathered feedback from participants as they answered exploratory questions and their thoughts around proposed campaign messaging and content.
Participants were all based in the UK and all Android users that used the Tube at least 3 times a week. Our team made sure to include participants that represented various parts of London, recruiting riders that lived in Zones 4 and above as well as those who lived in Central London.
analysis & outcomes
Our analysis of the results brought up two major insight themes of interest.
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Participants cared most about speed and transparency when making any type of payment.
Because all of our participants were used to the reliability of using physical cards for many years, there was a natural transition to using contactless payments with their cards in stores and for transit. It was quick, easy, and it always worked for them. On the other hand, nearly all of our participants encountered some kind of problem or error when they tried to use a mobile wallet to make a payment in the past. They considered mobile wallet payments - for transit and for day-to-day purchases - as less reliable and slower than physical cards. Many participants were unable to identify reasons for why using a mobile wallet for payments would be beneficial to them.
The campaign language and content left riders confused and uninterested in using a mobile wallet for their TfL journeys.
This insight was important because the main attraction point of the client's campaign centered around riders earning entries into a raffle for various prizes each time they used the client's mobile wallet product to pay for their TfL ride. We discovered that riders did not understand the purpose of the campaign or the mechanics for how they could win the prizes advertised in the raffle. We also learned that existing social media posts were not attention-grabbing enough to act as a successful entry point for riders to learn about the campaign.
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In order for the campaign to have a chance at success, we distilled our findings within those two insight themes into three main recommendations
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Copy revisions to better educate potential campaign participants on raffle mechanics, and to promote the speed and ease of use that comes with using a mobile wallet for transit payment.
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Supplemental messaging meant to work with the improved copy that encourages riders who had prior difficulty using a mobile wallet for payments to give it another try.
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Social media content that highlighted the simplicity and step-by-step process of how to use their mobile wallet on TfL to participate in the campaign.
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These recommendations were accepted by the client and implemented in the live campaign which launched March 2025.