Creative campaign encourages pedestrian/bike health, safety

Over the summer, Lawrence-Douglas Health Department  adopted a new and creative ad campaign to encourage healthy exercise and safety. Jenalea Myers, an employee at the LDC Health Department, describes the development of this ad campaign.

"Earlier this year, Community Health staff  at the Health Department came across the Travel with Care campaign, which is an initiative of People for Bikes," Myers said.

The Travel with Care campaign helped the LDC Health Department outline how the ads would look and they gave them suggestions on who should be featured and the messages the ads should send.

Myers said The Travel with Care campaign in Lawrence also coincides with the city's Be Active Safe Routes initiative.

"We decided it would be a great campaign to adopt locally because of the work being done around our Be Active Safe Routes initiative. We liked that the campaign not only encouraged pedestrian-bicycle safety but that it also highlighted everyday people who are cyclists, making it relatable and hopefully increasing the number of local residents cycling."

Pre-production of this campaign began earlier this spring with a local search for bikers to photograph. From there it only took two months for the ads to begin running in a variety of media.

"In April, we selected the local residents to be featured and hired a photographer to capture images of them with their bikes," Myers said. "From there, we created the ads based on template provided by People for Bikes. We began doing advertising in June, which has included print ads in the Lawrence Journal-World, Lawrence Magazine and Lawrence Kids Magazine and digital ads on the Journal-World’s website. We’re now in the process of placing ads on the University of Kansas buses. We also had posters printed that have been distributed around Lawrence in highly visible public places.

According to Myers, The Travel with Care Campaign has proven to be a success.

"The feedback has been great so far!" Myers said. "We’ve heard from many people who have seen the ads either in the newspaper, in a public place or on our social media pages. It’s been so great that we’ve considered doing an additional photo shoot in the near future to include some more cyclists!"

For more information about People with Bikes click here.
Want to learn more about what the City of Lawrence is doing to encourage safe bike routes? Click here