Arriva provides transport services including buses, trains, commuter coaches and waterbuses, and operates in 12 European countries: Czech Republic, Denmark, Hungary, Italy, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden and the UK.  

The requirement

Arriva Buses wanted to run a campaign that would highlight the service its mascot, Alfie, provides and raise awareness of Arriva within the community on a national scale.

The content 

The campaign, The Adventures of Alfie, was created to invite children to directly influence what happens next in an online comic strip starring Arriva’s mascot, Alfie.

In order to get the campaign off the ground and give children something to work with, I mapped out and wrote the first eight frames of the comic strip. This involved making sure that it:

• Was creative enough to capture people’s imagination
• Didn’t provide too much of a steer on how the storyline might develop
• Provided the right type of ending that could easily be continued

The results

The comic strip attracted widespread attention and dozens of entries from schoolchildren and, as a result of it being online, increased visits to Arriva’s website during the entire campaign.

* I worked on this client alongside the team at Haslimann Taylor.