Transit system woos the YouTube crowd

Cultivating a younger audience is a worthy goal for operators of transit buses, passenger rail and motorcoaches. But how do you get that done?

Capital Metro in Austin, Texas, is taking a stab at it with its iRide contest, a marketing campaign aimed at the YouTube generation. How do I know the contest is aimed at the YouTube generation?

Well, first off, contestants can submit their entries (on why they ride Cap Metro) in the form of songs (with music), song lyrics only, drawings, video (via YouTube) and written testimonial. To me, that's a pretty clear sign that this contest is targeting the young and the artistic.

In addition, the grand prize, an iPhone and $500 or an iPod Touch, a $100 iTunes gift card and $500, can only be won with a video submission. How many of the older generation have the wherewithal to submit a video entry through YouTube? As a 50-year-old, I can safely count myself out.

Or maybe I'm mistaking the message for the messenger. Maybe the contest is being marketed by a corps of young people who assume that everyone knows how to upload a video to YouTube and that everyone covets an iPhone or iPod Touch. One thing I'm sure of, $500 in cash is a gift that cuts across all generations.

I'll post a follow-up when the winning video is available. I'd like to see, and you might too, who the YouTube generation sends up as its champion. Maybe it will be a typical middle-aged guy like me.

Until next time.

Steve

For an amusing and enlightening comparison of Capital Metro's iRide contest vs. Los Angeles County Metro's Miss Traffic contest, read Fred Camino's recent blog post on MetroRiderLA. Here's the link.