Branding in Melbourne
The presentation of a public transport system to the public is of great importance. Branding of a system, when done well, comes to not only symbolise the the system, but the city as a whole (as we’ve seen with London and the tube). Although the branding of any given system will only be as good as the system itself, I think it’s wrong to see it as merely a side issue or gunzel fantasy. It’s important to look at recent Melbourne experience with branding and system image, the costs and benefits of change, and how it could be achieved.
Recent Melbourne Experience
Melbourne has never been much good at presenting a unified system image – let alone achieving one in practice. The closest we ever came to system wide branding was in the days of The Met, from1983 to 1999. The Met saw common branding applied to the whole system, except the private buses. But following the 1999 privatisation, any common branding of the system disappeared in favour of disaggregated branding of the individual companies contracted to run the system – it was a complete mess. System branding of signage and vehicles went from this (excluding buses):
to this:
Marketing of an integrated system completely disappeared, and the idea that Melbourne’s transport system should actually be marketed as such wasn’t retrieved until Metlink was created in 2003. But importantly, Metlink isn’t a blanket branding strategy, train, tram and bus operators still carry their own liveries and company profiles; and ultimately the public recognises these above Metlink branding on signage.
Costs and Benefits
But some may say that what’s really important is improving services, not spending more money on repainting (stickering) the whole fleet of trains, trams and buses at substantial cost. Every dollar spent on repaints is a dollar that could be spent on meaningful improvements. That view is probably right and wrong. There’s no doubt that Melbourne’s public transport needs substantial investment to deliver widespread service improvements, and that rebranding the system would do little to deliver on this front. However, to achieve a large scale modal shift to public transport, the improved service still needs to be marketed to the public, and marketing operators as individual fiefdoms does little to confidence confidence in integration.
Moreover, in the long run, integrated system (rather than company focused) branding makes economic sense. Privatisation saw substantial resources spent on rebranding and even more spent when M>Train and M>Tram withdrew. Because the contracts have a reasonably short life cycle (around a decade) and franchisees have no guarantee of keeping the contract (especially Connex in the forthcoming retendering), an arrangement which fails to include system-wide branding could actually see substantially more money spent on repaints of vehicles. Had integrated branding been written into the original privatisation contracts in 1999, the majority of the tram system would not have to have been repainted at all.
Irrespective of the merits of privatisation (which is really a story for another day), over the long run it ought to be cheaper to keep integrated liveries and branding. London manages to have both private sector involvement and integrated branding, and the German Verkehrsverbund system often sees common branding across many operators – so there’s no reason we can’t do it here. Given that the retendering process in Melbourne is happening now, it would be foolish not to include a requirement for rebranding along system, rather than company lines in the new contracts.
Ways to Achieve Better Branding
The system requires a common name, signage and livery. The livery can be the same across the system (as we saw with The Met), or colour coded by mode (as is the case in London and with Metlink signage). I quite like colour-coding by mode, as it allows for greater flexibility in distinguishing varying service standards within a system.
So what would it look like? THis is where I get to be foameresque for a moment. In my ideal world, we’d probably just copy what Transport for London are doing, and it would look something like this (pdf available here):
But really, a similar effect could be achieved with considerably more ease by using the existing Metlink style. Where Metlink branding is used, it generally works very well, so extending it to liveries should be reasonably easy. Just paint (sticker) the trains blue, trams green and buses orange, as well as using the Metlink brand in place of Connex, Yarra Trams, Ventura, Dysons etc.; and system-wide branding is complete. By writing this into the new train and tram contracts, the process shouldn’t cause too much protest by operators. Of course, it probably won’t happen because the government thinks that making private companies like Connex the face of the system will defuse political fallout from transport problems. It’s a pity really, because now is the time that it could be smoothly implemented.
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Phin: great post. Three comments:
1. More fundamental than branding is a name for the system, which we still don’t really have (IMHO).
We used to have ‘The Met’. While I was barely in Melbourne at the time, I believe that if you told someone ‘you took The Met’, you would have been understood.
Because Metlink is a brand rather than a system name, this causes some problems and missed branding opportunities.
For instance we still have the ‘Met Shop’ and ‘Metcard’ since Met, though officially defunct, is the best name we’ve got for the system as a whole.
Remember those bumper stickers that said ‘My other car is the Met’? I fear that a revamp saying ‘My other car is Metlink’ won’t quite work because it isn’t really a system name (though it is a brand and a non-profit company).
2. Ideally you want branding to be all pervasive that their symbol is everywhere (like London Underground) and so widely known it doesn’t need an accompanying word (like Nike).
Adelaide suffers because there is confusion between ‘Adelaide Metro’ and ‘Transadelaide’. Both could be system names, but only one is. They also appear to have two main websites as well. Plus Adelaide goes way overboard with the number colours used for bus liveries, brochures etc.
Sydney is its usual mess and I haven’t visited Brisbane to comment; though I believe they’re making progress with TransLInk.
Transperth is head and shoulders above the rest; its branding is extremely strong everywhere on the system. IIRC even the train seat covers have the curved Transperth t logo.
Adding to its strength has been its longevity; the Transperth name has been used since 1986 and there has only been one significant logo change in that time (from the square T to the curved T) a few years back. And even when Perth contracted out the buses in the 1990s the strong branding remained.
3. Ticketing is another major area for branding. Especially as we’re changing to a new system this will assume increasing importance in the next few years.
We should pay tribute to Metcard in the 1990s; they chose a name (though not a logo) that in the long term strengthened ‘The Met’ brand rather than weakened it.
Myki, in contrast, is trying to be its own seperate brand in a cluttered market. Assuming it’s successful this will detract from rather than contribute to overall system branding. Even using Metlink style on its website and brochures would have helped enormously.
Again Transperth got it right with SmartRider. While there is a new name ‘SmartRider’, it’s a logical extension to the established ‘MultiRider and is subservient to the main Transperth branding. This can be seen here where the card and paperwork is unmistakeably Transperth style:
http://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2007/09/transperth-smartrider-user-review-last.html
You forgot Swanston Trams, MBL & National
(I tried a longer reply before, but Wordpress seems to have a length limit, so I’ll break it up)
This is Part 1
Phin: great post. Three comments:
1. More fundamental than branding is a name for the system, which we still don’t really have (IMHO).
We used to have ‘The Met’. While I was barely in Melbourne at the time, I believe that if you told someone ‘you took The Met’, you would have been understood.
Because Metlink is a brand rather than a system name, this causes some problems and missed branding opportunities.
For instance we still have the ‘Met Shop’ and ‘Metcard’ since Met, though officially defunct, is the best name we’ve got for the system as a whole.
Remember those bumper stickers that said ‘My other car is the Met’? I fear that a revamp saying ‘My other car is Metlink’ won’t quite work because it isn’t really a system name (though it is a brand and a non-profit company).
2. Ideally you want branding to be all pervasive that their symbol is everywhere (like London Underground) and so widely known it doesn’t need an accompanying word (like Nike).
Adelaide suffers because there is confusion between ‘Adelaide Metro’ and ‘Transadelaide’. Both could be system names, but only one is. They also appear to have two main websites as well. Plus Adelaide goes way overboard with the number colours used for bus liveries, brochures etc.
Sydney is its usual mess and I haven’t visited Brisbane to comment; though I believe they’re making progress with TransLInk.
Transperth is head and shoulders above the rest; its branding is extremely strong everywhere on the system. IIRC even the train seat covers have the curved Transperth t logo.
Adding to its strength has been its longevity; the Transperth name has been used since 1986 and there has only been one significant logo change in that time (from the square T to the curved T) a few years back. And even when Perth contracted out the buses in the 1990s the strong branding remained.
Part 2
3. Ticketing is another major area for branding. Especially as we’re changing to a new system this will assume increasing importance in the next few years.
We should pay tribute to Metcard in the 1990s; they chose a name (though not a logo) that in the long term strengthened ‘The Met’ brand rather than weakened it.
Myki, in contrast, is trying to be its own seperate brand in a cluttered market. Assuming it’s successful this will detract from rather than contribute to overall system branding. Even using Metlink style on its website and brochures would have helped enormously.
Again Transperth got it right with SmartRider. While there is a new name ‘SmartRider’, it’s a logical extension to the established ‘MultiRider and is subservient to the main Transperth branding. This can be seen here where the card and paperwork is unmistakeably Transperth style:
http://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2007/09/transperth-smartrider-user-review-last.html
3. Ticketing is another major area for branding. Especially as we’re changing to a new system this will assume increasing importance in the next few years.
We should pay tribute to Metcard in the 1990s; they chose a name (though not a logo) that in the long term strengthened ‘The Met’ brand rather than weakened it.
Myki, in contrast, is trying to be its own seperate brand in a cluttered market. Assuming it’s successful this will detract from rather than contribute to overall system branding. Even using Metlink style on its website and brochures would have helped enormously.
Again Transperth got it right with SmartRider. While there is a new name ‘SmartRider’, it’s a logical extension to the established ‘MultiRider and is subservient to the main Transperth branding. This can be seen here where the card and paperwork is unmistakeably Transperth style:
http://melbourneontransit.blogspot.com/2007/09/transperth-smartrider-user-review-last.html
This is Part 2
3. Ticketing is another major area for branding. Especially as we’re changing to a new system this will assume increasing importance in the next few years.
We should pay tribute to Metcard in the 1990s; they chose a name (though not a logo) that in the long term strengthened ‘The Met’ brand rather than weakened it.
Myki, in contrast, is trying to be its own seperate brand in a cluttered market. Assuming it’s successful this will detract from rather than contribute to overall system branding. Even using Metlink style on its website and brochures would have helped enormously.
Again Transperth got it right with SmartRider. While there is a new name ‘SmartRider’, it’s a logical extension to the established ‘MultiRider and is subservient to the main Transperth branding (pictures on my blog – the comments don’t seem to like plain URLs).
Melbourne suffers from never having had its buses as a government monopoly both in a branding way and a system planning way.
I like the Melbourne Transport signage. The colour coding is top-notch. My one question is “What is the Light Metro?”…
Phin,
Great, well thought out posts as always. I agree with Peter in that The Met still has a lot of currency in the marketplace, particularly among older Melburnians. I think Metlink has quite cleverly pushed itself into the space formerly occupied by the Met as a brand (but not of course as a service) to establish itself.
While it would be good to have all vehicles liveried as Metlink vehicles (operated by…), this is an approach that will take years to achieve. Hopefully, Metlink will have the stability of tenure over the next few years to do for vehicles what it has done fairly quickly with signage.
When I was in Adelaide earlier this year, I was talking to some TransportSA people who said their long term plan is to relivery all vehicles in the red/yellow/blue/white ‘Adelaide Metro’ colours (the first three being the defacto ’state’ colours). But they said that they had to start small and work upwards, such as decals at eye height at train, tram and bus doorways, common images and look and feel for timetabling and signage. The bus fleet (private owned and under contract to Adelaide Metro) are slowly being repainted into AM colours along with the train fleet to create a common image.
Peter, I agree with you that TransPerth has made a lot of good decisions in terms of branding of its services, its ticketing and customer information. (I am still working on the after action report to you from my Perth trip by the way, but I have to finish a uni. assignment first.) Sydney outside of the ‘government network’ is a branding (and ticketing) basket case, while again I cannot comment on Brisbane or Canberra. A great missed opportunity in Melbourne for rebranding the PT system has been in the renegotiation of the metro bus contracts. The quicker that the various operator amalgamations of recent years could be erased (Ventura are slow are repainting the ex-National fleet for example and I expect Dysons will let Northern Bus Lines’ livery linger on for years) and unified into a single livery, based perhaps around Metlink’s ‘bus orange’ would be a good thing for mine.
Also agree about myki’s unhelpful attempts to be a ’standalone’ brand, although at the moment, that’s probably good in that it is not dragging the rest of the network down with it…
LS
Agree with sentiments of posts.
Victoria had its strongest suit with The Met and Vline.
Cityrail is not bad although has been parodied as it deteriorated.
Nothing in Australia as strong as London Underground aka the Tube or New York’s “Subway” (also not the official name) Paris “Metro” (also not the real name) or even HK’s MTR.
You can survive without a strong name eg Tokyo has a spaghetti soup of lines, some with unremarkable names, but rail transport itself is strong, and the national brand “JR” is one of Japan’s top brands.
As for logos and symbols, none beat the simplicity of the London Underground, MTRCHK, former British rail. Cityrail’s older L7 logo was on its way to having that status but they keep mucking around with it (of course, when you’re the CEO and you can’t actually do anything because the unions run the show…time to change the logo!)
My navigability training track talks about this and using logos and station signage is extremely important, but still probably the tip of the navigability iceberg.
I find it so reassuring in HK to walk down some side street and see the logo (http://www.mtr.com.hk/images/co_logo.jpg) hovering above a stairway into the ground. I know that if I follow that logo, sure the concourse layout below might be convoluted, and sure I might not be on the line I want to travel on, but I know FOR SURE I will get to my destination in reasonable time with no waiting.
But to build that brand identification takes years, and you have to leave the thing alone.
Of course I also thought the Teacup was the best logo, but the other branding eg “VR” was not consistent or strong.
QR’s logo is also not bad.
Don’t forget Vline … technically this is still branding in Melbourne. A couple of examples logos here http://www.vlinecars.com/news220806_02.htm
You also have “dead brands” for eg that might be resurrected at some stage
Egs include Tramway Board
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32824515@N00/2878313154/
and Tramway Board Melbourne
http://www.flickr.com/photos/32824515@N00/2878313074/
Even Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company probably had a logo way back when
I support the idea of painting all Melbourne’s buses in the orange (that they are using for the so-called Smartbus)
Just like all taxis being yellow, I like being able to see the bus in the distance. They are not private property and don’t need to be in fashionable liveries, just in whatever works.
Unfortunately (as shown on the Matt Julian page) the marketing department at Vline seem less interested in getting new customers and would rather play around with the logo
http://www.vlinecars.com/news220806_02.htm
V/line got new pax ok, just dropped the fares… with demand as-is, you’d think a raise would have been ok, except that the politicians get to play too.
Many thanks all – I agree the Met was a powerful brandname (if not system) for Melbourne, and that throwing it away was a real waste. So far, metlink has had a considerably less substantial role and isn’t the face of the system. Setting it up as another version of the Met is a good idea – but as Riccardo says, getting decent brand recognition can take years if not decades. Metlink could work well given that it is already set up on most signage – just need to do the operator and vehicle branding (a big job in itself admittedly!)I quite like the MMTB idea too Cameron, ultimately as long as it is recognisable and the government will stick with it then my criteria are met.
Tom, I agree that the private history of Melbourne’s buses has had a substantially detrimental effect on bus quality, branding and public image. That’s going to be hard to turn around given the entrenched interests. RvB, I’ll have a post up on a light metro project up soon – that will reveal more.
I also wonder to what extent the name can be used for more than one mode.
All of the underground railway brands overseas apply to only that mode.
London Transport tried using a combined name for Underground and buses, I suppose it caught on at bureaucratic levels but I doubt the public thought much of it.
When I used to think of the “Met” I recall the trains and maybe the trams but the buses weren’t the top of my recall – despite the token sticker it was obvious they were all still private companies who took govt subsidies.
Maybe the workable delineation is like in HK – different brand names for each mode, but a workable brand name for the ticket system that crosses all.
Hence you end up with MTR, formerly the KCR, the island Tram, the Sunba and Gauba and so on, all taking the Octopus ticket.
I think Yarra trams is a bit duff. What the fruit does “Yarra” trams mean? Apart from the river name the connection to Melbourne is a bit ordinary. Melbourne just has trams; nothing more needs to be said. Something vanilla like the Melbourne Tramway Company would have done just fine.
As I said above, I think the QR logo and QR name are excellent; what dilutes the brand is using the name to cover a 1720 hauling some cattle wagons out the back of Winton, while using the same brand to cover a suburban passenger train under the bowels of Central. The name probably serves Queensland’s political objectives better than its urban transport marketing objective.
In relation to the relationship between Miki and Metlink, it could be worth considering London’s experience with the Oyster card. As Phin notes, London has a very well established brand in its Underground. Unlike the Met and the metcard, London’s smartcard ticketing system – the Oyster – bears no resemblance to the Underground name. It is however synonymous to Londoners with the London public transport system. Even before the introduction of oyster cards, London had an integrated ticketing system, so the fact that the Oyster can be used beyond the Underground on buses, overground services, Docklands Light Rail and trams is perhaps of lesser significance. The Oystercard bears the London underground symbol (also used on buses and DLR) and is heavily promoted and marketed across the entire network. This has meant that it hasn’t detracted from the Underground brand but has been boosted by it and become synonymous with it. The key difference of course being that the Underground _is_ a very strong brand. If, when it is up and running, Miki were to be branded and promoted in a similar manner alongside a resurrected ‘Met’ brand (which I believe still lives on Melbourne’s collective memory) I see no reason why it should necessarily detract from the brand.
Loose Shunter,
The Canberra system is very simple. With one exception, within the ACT there is one mode and one operator – ACTION Buses. The branding is consistent and well recognised (even though the service – or lack thereof – is often maligned by the travelling public). The exception is the Airliner shuttle bus which serves the airport and is operated by Deane’s bus lines and is not integrated into the ACTION network (partly for political reasons). There are a few services which operate across the border into Queanbeyan, Yass etc. These aren’t integrated and have separate branding.
Riccardo,
While very few buses appeared in Met livery (some did), as I recall most (many?), bus stops wore the older Met branding (the rounded triangle swirl) and you may recall buses appeared in the Met’s TV ads (Get the Met to get around, get the Met all over town, get the Met forget the car, get the Met). It certainly wasn’t fully integrated branding by any stretch, but it had the potential. But I agree, I never looked upon the private buses as ‘really’ being part of the Met.
On the other point about common names – it perhaps doesn’t hurt if different modes have different names, but the network overall benefits from a common identity. This can be in the form of common logos different colours as Phin suggests, or common symbols (as with London’s underground, DLR, busses), or simply with an overarching brand – as in the Met. I believe there would be scope to accommodate specific services/names/products such as ‘Light Metro’, or ‘DART’, or Oyster/Miki under a common brand.
Hence Phin’s common scheme for Melbourne branding across modes but also the mode itself.
This is common in business.
Qantas owned Jetset tours yet you wouldn’t expect Jetset to be renamed Qantas (there was also a separate Qantas travel company).
These familiar with the Japanese Hotel chain Nikko and who speak Japanese would realise that Nikko in this case is the first and third Chinese characters of the name Japan Airlines (JAL). The chain is of course owned by JAL and cross-promote each other; yet there is some mystique in calling the hotels Nikko rather than JAL hotels. The other airline, ANA, calls the hotels ANA as well. So you can cross-brand, or not.
Accor is also famous for this. Mercure, Ibis, Sofitel, Formule-1 etc, all the same company. They use the different brands to pitch a different value propostion to the different markets without making very serious changes to the way they are managed.
London Transport had the potential to be a good umbrella name to demonstrate its rail operations were not part of BR, but at the end of the day the Tube remained the Tube or at best the Underground, I never heard anyone saying “I’m catching the London Transport train home”
I might do a post on a potential branding scheme for Australia.
Would you please updaye this the m>train is ran no more and connex runs the network. You also fogot about our trams in this to
In response to Cameron, there is no reference to M>Train except for one logo, which is tied into the article and proves the point, so theres no reason why it needs to be removed.
Cameron, I can see references to M>Tram and Yarra Trams in this? Read through the article properly, the M>Train logo is to prove a point about branding, not to say “this is who run trains now”. Note that it was publised in October 2008.
I wonder where Phin has disappeared to – haven’t seen him around here for a while
. Come back Phin!
btw. as I’m sure we’re all aware now. the new Contract will have a clause in it which requires a new ‘brand for melbourne trains’ which will remain with the trains regardless of future contractors.
not sure if it will extend to Trams.
I agree iwth comments in the article that the logical choice would be Metlink as it is already a brand that a lot of people would have heard of and recognise through metlinkmelbourne.com.au, batbygopstopl, the flags at bus/tram/train stops/stations and other adds they’ve run.
I heard that ‘Metro’ is now the official name for the Melbourne train network. Also, the tram network is still known as ‘Yarra Trams’ despite now being operated by whoever it is now.
As for the Melbourne bus network, I agree that they all need a common livery. As a visitor, I found it really confusing trying to determine what was a Metlink bus and what was a charter bus!
I like the way things are done in Perth – all buses are either white and green or silver and green, and Transperth branding is dominant – the only mention of the operator is a message ‘This service is proudly operated by xxx’. Similar liveries also apply to the B-Series trains (~2004) and the ferries, while the A-Series trains still have some patches of red remaining from when they were introduced. In fact, TP hardly ever mention the actual operators of the service, marketing the whole thing as one integrated network.
Again, with the ticketing, I like the way it’s done in Perth – with regular tickets just being referred to as 1 Zone – 9 Zone or 2 Sections, and the value tickets being xxxRider (SmartRider, DayRider, FamilyRider and formally MultiRider). And bus travel in the CBD is free. Adelaide make it a bit misleading as the ‘Zone’ ticket implies that there are zones when there aren’t, and the eastern states systems have all managed to get some kind of a ticketing system brand that is maligned by many users – Go Card, myki or (shudder) T-Card.
That said, TP isn’t quite perfect – the bus network is horribly infrequent in many areas, especially on Sunday, and there isn’t a ‘true’ all day ticket on weekdays (DayRider is only after morning peak a la Sydney Off-peak return). But at least they get there marketing (largely) right.