Greyhound: Bringing Back the Thrill of Road Travel
SVA MASTERS IN BRANDING PROJECT
ASSIGNMENT
As part of the Unified Theory of Branding class at SVA our team was tasked with the challenge of repositioning and rebranding a transportation company that has lost relevance within culture. The brand chosen was Greyhound Inc, the largest provider of intercity bus transportation. Founded in 1914, Greyhound serves more than 3,800 destinations across North America with a modern, environmentally friendly fleet. It has become an American icon, providing safe, enjoyable and affordable travel to nearly 18 million passengers each year in the United States and Canada.
Problem
Greyhound is no longer the only affordable form of transportation and now competes with rail and air travel companies.
Additionally, Greyhound’s reputation for safety and comfort has also been compromised by a series of unfortunate events and negative media coverage, further damaging the brands reputation for being save and reliable.
METHODOLOGY
In order to effectively reposition Greyhound, we conducted a series of quantitative and qualitative research. We explored the brand experience through the eyes of the customer to understand the problem first hand, drew insights from online customer reviews and conducted interviews with a small sample of passengers and employees based in New York.
We identified three characteristics unique to Greyhound, distilling them down to their brand essence in order to create a clear and concise brand promise and mission statement.
Brand Mission Statement
STRATEGY
We categorized Greyhound’s audiences and developed a brand strategy that would resonate with each unique audience.
We analyzed the arena of transportation to understand what characteristics persuade decision making and looked at analogous brands to understand how they resonate with customers. We identified key business opportunities that had potential and importance for the brand and could be easily implemented. These opportunities fueled potential solutions and executions for the brand.
