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FEBRUARY 2015 | MassTransitmag.com | Mass Transit | 19 RTS BUSES are seen as dependable, but a new look and logo will attract more riders to the system. agency started on a two-year jour- ney to rebrand service and relaunch how Rochester area residents see the agency and how employees do their job under a unifed name — Regional Transit Service (RTS). An Authoritative Name RTS CEO Bill Carpenter said the agency began holding focus groups with customers, infrequent riders and those who never rode the bus to get their perception on what the system meant to them. While riders found the system to be important and enjoyable, there was an image problem. Te authority's logo hadn't changed since it was incepted in 1969 with a strong governmental look and the color scheme dated to the 1990s. "Tere was immediate trac- tion toward what we wanted to deliver on," he said. "It became very easy to expect to say that if we stay where we are we will stay where we are. To get where we're going to go, it's going to require an investment." Te agency operated in seven counties and paratransit service — all with diferent names. Ontario County also joined the system in August. In Genesee County, it was known as Batavia Bus Ser- vice (BBS); in Livingston Coun- ty, it was called Livingston Area Transportation (LATS); in On- tario County it was County Area Transportation Service (CATS); in Orleans County it was Orleans Transit Service (OTS); in Seneca County, it was known as Seneca Transit Service (STS); in Wayne County it was known as Wayne Area Transportation (WATS); in Wyoming County it was known as Wyoming Transit Service (WYTS); and paratransit service was known as Lif Line. A look at qualitative and quan- titative data collected from focus groups showed multiple brand names caused issues. "Each of them had a difer- ent brand name so there was no understanding or awareness that it was all the transit authority," Keller said. "Customers overall were quite pleased with the expe- rience on the system and found it to be an important part of the community. It has been around for decades and decades and while they found it to be reliable, at the same time, they saw the image as a bit outdated and from the logo, it was a little bit frumpy." Jim Redmond, chairman of the RGRTA Board of Directors, said the proposal to rebrand the system was a big one, but something that merited discussion when brought to the board because of the poten- tial impact it had to give more of a sense of a unifed system with one name and one color scheme. "You know, before it was RTS, when you went with the name of the transit authority — RGRTA — it doesn't exactly roll of the tongue," he said. "But RTS does." Getting Where They Want to Go Keller said the staf took a clas- sic process to assess and develop the rebranding, laying out steps phased within a timetable with anticipation of a sof launch in May before unleashing it on the public in August. Carpenter said the focus group was challenged to think what would happen if public transit ceased in Rochester, including those who don't regularly ride the system. Once the group thought about it more, it allowed them to see how they or friends and relatives who do use the bus would be impacted. Afer performing an audit, Keller said they came up with the RTS master brand for service in all counties. For example, CATS was changed to RTS-Ontario. "When I frst came into this position a little over three years ago, we told our customers what they should think, but we really didn't market to them," Carpen- ter said. "And we didn't market to our employees about who we were and what made us success- ful and what we're committing to tell our customers." Afer coming out with the mas- ter brand, Keller said the authority needed to determine how to launch the rebranding, so they sought in- put from employees to make sure it was rolled out as a system with a mission they can deliver on. "Our brand promises peo- ple that we make it easy to enjoy your journey and that's refected in our tagline 'enjoy the ride,'" Keller said. "We started talking to em- ployees and defning our roles on how we deliver on that brand. "Tat process meant defning what does that mean, how do we defne that, how do we assess that, deliver on that and prepare for that internally." All of this was done with just the four-person agency marketing team, with the help of Antithesis Advertising and Clarion Research. "Tat was a really huge un- dertaking," said Megan Jasinski, director of communications and marketing for RTS. "We needed to be very, very detail oriented to ex- ecute on that brand. At one point I had a spreadsheet of 300 rows with "It became very easy to expect to say that if we stay where we are we will stay where we are. To get where we're going to go, it's going to require an investment." Photos courtesy of RTS More online See the whole story and examples of RTS marketing materials to market the new brand at www. MassTransitmag. com/12031656 RTS NEEDED to update its brand to meet its goals for future years, so leaders were willing to take the plunge on a $1 million investment to study and develop a new look for the system.