Montgomery County Vision Zero Program

Situation/Challenge

Managers of the Vision Zero Distracted Driving Program in Montgomery County, Maryland, aimed to launch a transit advertising campaign to deter drivers from texting or engaging in other distracting activities while on the road. Through an earlier task order, the county had contracted the production of bus back advertisements, so ad space was already in place.

With an extremely limited advertising budget, the client sought strategic ways to maximize the signage’s impact. The county posted a task order challenging the successful bidder with creating an advertising campaign that would deliver the best possible value for the investment. The plan was to run the advertising program for two months during the summer of 2020.

Approach

Sage contacted two bus advertising vendors — MetroBus and RideOn. After extensive negotiation, Sage concluded that it would be most advisable to invest the total budget in a single outlet. Accordingly, we selected Vector Media, the service provider for RideOn. As part of this process, Sage negotiated an extra month and a half of free exposure, nearly doubling the impact of the available budget. Sage re-purposed campaign artwork to accommodate additional size requirements for a wider variety of placements, which garnered added value and exposure. Additionally, Sage facilitated all aspects of media purchasing, installation and billing with Vector Media.

Results

The result was a highly successful exposure campaign, which is contributing heavily to the county’s mission to eliminate pedestrian deaths and serious injuries by 2030. The county saw a 10% reduction in distracted driving accidents between 2019 and 2023.