As a continually growing city, Peoria strives to provide its residents with
innovative and robust services. As one of the leading communities in
sustainability, Peoria has driven sustainability forward with the expansion
of its public transit services and recycling education programs. Peoria
has launched various initiatives of its services, including the launch of the
Peoria On The Go (POGO) neighborhood bus circulator and its various
recycling programs. The City’s Transit Division has recently relaunched its POGO circulator with new
routes. It seeks to develop a messaging campaign to encourage ridership
and address residents’ concerns about utilizing public transit.
Communication campaigns are an effective, purposeful strategy aimed at
a target audience to inform, educate, and potentially change behaviors.
A robust strategy consists of a targeted approach to a targeted public
and messaging strategies that seek to inform and educate. To craft
effective messaging strategies, the City of Peoria partnered with
students from the ASU School of Social and Behavioral Sciences to
develop communication campaigns for its POGO service.
Students from the CMN 520 Communication Campaigns
class were split into groups to tackle two of Peoria’s largest public
services: recycling and public transit. Each group designed a
communication campaign, complete with campaign strategies and
tactics to facilitate the design of an overarching campaign to increase
public ridership and recycling. Students conducted a literature review
of similar communication strategies and distributed a survey to Peoria
residents to gather information about their perceptions of recycling and
public transportation.
Students identified two core themes to increase awareness: increased
social media usage and public/private partnerships to boost public
participation in these services. By developing robust social media
campaigns for Peoria’s Transit Division and Solid Waste Division, Peoria
staff can target its residents to encourage public participation through
incentives, such as prizes and targeted messages that vary depending
on the age group. Additionally, both student groups identified public
partnerships through events and collaborations with other services, such
as Peoria’s libraries and local businesses.