For four weeks, the student hub at the Piazza on the Hatfield Campus has been a hive of activity with ‘Gautrain Activations’, as honours students of the Department of Marketing Management ran a promotional campaign to increase awareness for the Gautrain and to promote the Gautrain as an easy, convenient and reliable service for students to commute between Johannesburg and Pretoria.

Competitions enticing prospective Gautrain customers with free Gold Cards ranging in value from R50 to R200, formed part of the campaign. Participants had to perform sophisticated dance routines, make speeches and answer questions about Gautrain off-peak and peak travel times to earn prizes.

In one campaign, students of Team Innovation Station presented two Gautrain stations, namely the Centurion and Sandton stations, with decorated gazebos. The Centurion station illustrated the SuperSport Park cricket stadium and the audience could participate in a cricket activity. Participants had to answer a question regarding the Gautrain stations. Answers regarding the Centurion station were stuck to a big green cricket net and the participant had to hit the station name on the net with a ball by using a cricket bat to stand a chance to win a prize.

The Sandton station represented commerce through the Hard Rock Café, which is a popular attraction for people who visit Sandton City. If the audience got the answers of the questions correct, they could have a ginger beer served in Hard Rock Café style. An innovative strategy designed by the student groups was to integrate social media into the promotional campaigns.  Winning participants were required to upload ‘selfies’ onto Facebook, Instagram and Twitter under the watchful eyes of the crowd – not forgetting the all important #Gautrain.

In another campaign, students of the the Local Brain Transporters team had four Gautrain stations situated on the Piazza. Three of the four stations represented the different colours of the Gautrain’s travel periods – red, orange and green. Red represents peak-hours, orange intermediate hours, and green the off-peak hours. The fourth station was a gold Gautrain station. The stations were decorated and the relevant information was communicated at each station.  The stations worked as follows:

RED STATION: The red station had a nostalgic element – the paper folded “quacky” game that children used to play in schools. Participants at the red station had to choose numbers and questions to answers on the “quacky” to be able to win a green, orange or red cool drink, which represented the colours of the Gausave travel periods.

ORANGE STATION: The orange station asked questions about the attractions situated near the Gautrain route, such as the National Zoo in Pretoria or the Aviation Museum of South Africa. If contestants answered correctly, they could complete a form with their details and throw the form in a box where a lucky draw had taken place later on.

GREEN STATION: At the green station, the participants had to answer a question about the Gautrain travel times. If the participant got the right answer, he or she could choose a balloon that was floating against the ceiling of the gazebo. When the balloon had a specific sticker on top of it, the lucky participant won a Gautrain Gold Card loaded with a certain amount of money.

GOLD STATION: The gold station was the last station. Here students could experience the Gautrain through a photo booth if they participated in the activities of either the green, orange or red station. The photo booth had a backdrop that looked like the interior of the Gautrain. Photos with the Gautrain logo on were taken and were printed for the participants to take home. A big QR code was displayed at the photo booth for students to download the Gautrain application on their cell phones using a barcode scanner for further information about Gausave.

The Local Brain Transporters team in action at the red station.

Apart from the above campaigns, the Marketing Management honours students had to respond to a assignment they received during a recent guest lecture by Mr Ashton Bodrick, Executive Manager of Marketing Services for the Gautrain Management Agency. They were challenged to design innovative social media campaigns, integrate app development in Gautrain promotion and design successful mobile viral marketing campaigns.

To assist students, specialist online advertising agencies were invited to present guest lectures on best practice with regard to designing online viral campaigns from a commercial perspective. Industry experts explained the risks involved when designing online campaigns and offered informative viewpoints, pointing out that success was by no means guaranteed in the tough world of business.

Being on top of the latest industry trends in digital marketing communications, students collated the latest journal papers on mobile viral marketing research.  Groups presented their ideas on how to use ‘entertainment and purposive value’ to entice mobile users to read viral messages, creating interest and then hopefully motivating the influential user to refer the message to his or her social network.

The final stage of the project was a presentation of the mobile viral campaigns in a series of research posters.  Students showcased their knowledge gained from this project to the Gautrain Management Agency and industry experts.