If you travel on London’s Waterloo and City line in the next two weeks, you should notice an unusual advertising campaign. Contractor BAM is taking all the ad positions in every carriage to deliver its message to a captive audience of City decision-makers.
The eight different but linked posters in the campaign will concentrate on the benefits of good buildings for business and society.
The campaign follows a market research exercise conducted last year which found that BAM’s clients wanted to find out more about the business.
BAM Construct UK chief executive Graham Cash said: “Our customers told us two striking things. One is that BAM listened and understood them better than any other construction business, and secondly, they wanted to hear more from us.
“That’s why we’ve taken the rare step of talking directly to people and not to businesses. Our adverts reflect our customer-focus and that we understand that what we do enables our customers to do their business better and has impact on people’s lives.”
BAM is currently building a new mezzanine floor at Waterloo Station, and hit on the idea of advertising to the influential audience of Waterloo and City line passengers as a result of the project.
Ross Sturley, who runs construction marketing consultancy Chart Lane, said: “It’s great to see someone applying marketing principles strategically – to talk to customers, find out what they want, and then deliver it is a simple premise, but one not always kept to the fore of construction thinking. It’s also interesting that BAM are trying to take positive messages beyond the usual audiences, and on to those who occupy and pay for the product we produce.”
“Their approach – undertaking detailed research, and acting on the results – is textbook. It would be great to see more such approaches around the industry.”
“The Waterloo & City Line…. is a great example of ‘niche media’ which can be an effective way of cutting through the cloud and getting a message to a particular demographic. I’ll be interested to see the results, and hope to see them enter our Construction Marketing Awards [run by the Chartered Institute of Marketing Construction Interest Group].”
The campaign has also been timed to highlight BAM’s work on the Olympics. BAM Construct built the Chobham Academy at the Olympic Village, and BAM Nuttall has had several contracts at the Olympic Park and will also be working on the post-Games conversion.
