The Problem
Tyne and Wear Metro faced one of its most challenging periods during the Covid-19 pandemic. As an essential service providing vital journeys for NHS staff, care workers and key workers across the North-East, Metro had to navigate constantly changing rules and restrictions while maintaining passenger confidence.
Throughout the pandemic, SHA. worked to tight deadlines delivering passenger safety advice and commercial campaigns. We also created a multi award-winning reassurance campaign that helped passenger numbers significantly recover as restrictions relaxed.
But the real challenge came next: how do you fully restore passenger numbers when people have spent months avoiding public transport? How do you convince families that Metro is safe, welcoming, and worth using again?
As part of Metro’s recovery plan, a customer promise was made: children under 12 could travel for free with a fare-paying adult. This was a compelling offer—but it needed a campaign that would cut through lingering anxiety and rebuild the habit of using Metro for family journeys.
The Intelligent Idea
We use Brainwave, a unique strategic planning tool that identifies the emotional barriers to a brand’s adoption and delivers the emotional stimuli to challenge that behaviour.
Our analysis revealed that the barrier wasn’t just about safety concerns – it was about rediscovering Metro as part of family life. Parents needed permission to start making those journeys again, and an incentive that made the decision feel not just safe, but rewarding.
The free travel offer for children was that incentive. But the communication needed to focus on the emotional drivers: family time, exploration, affordability, and the simple joy of getting out together.
The Solution
We developed Take the Kids for Free—a multi-media creative campaign designed to create a conversation that delivered emotional stimuli to our target audience through all the necessary channels.
The campaign ran across:
TV
Cinema
Out of home (OOH)
Digital platforms
Social media
The creative work focused squarely on the emotional drivers we’d identified: positioning Metro not as a transport network recovering from a pandemic, but as an enabler of family experiences. The message was simple, clear, and irresistible—take the kids for free and rediscover your region together.
The Results
Following the launch, the impact was immediate and measurable:
296,000 additional adult journeys generated
£284,000 net revenue for Metro
The campaign has been regarded as a major success by all stakeholders and recognised as a key part of Metro’s post-covid customer recovery.
But beyond the numbers, we achieved something more valuable: we helped families rediscover Metro. We transformed a free travel offer into an emotional reconnection with public transport, turning pandemic anxiety into post-pandemic adventure.
That’s what intelligent ideas do. They don’t just communicate offers – they change behaviour by addressing the real emotional barriers standing in the way.
The Happy Client
We’ve produced some amazing work together – I’ll be recommending you to others!
