First travel token scheme started by Midland Red
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• A novel method of marketing bus travel was announced in Birmingham on Tuesday when Mr Walter Womar, director and general manager of National Bus Company's largest operating unit, Midland Red, revealed that it had linked with Reckitt and Colman Household Division in a joint promotional offer to encourage greater use of stage bus services.
The offer — a lp travel voucher on every pack of Zip firelighters bought during a three-month trial period — is believed to be the first of its kind by a British bus undertaking. If successful, the experiment could be the forerunner of similar schemes not only for ordinary bus fares but also on Midland Red's tours and express services. And Mr Ian Tosh, marketing manager of Reckitt's Household Division at Hull, stated that other products from the company's range of about 42 suitable lines might be added to the exercise.
Mr Womar told the Press that by operating this scheme the company hoped to ascertain the public's attitude to this kind of offer and to find out whether new stage carriage business could be generated. The cost to Midland Red would be only £3000, even if the experiment failed, but both Mr Womar and Mr Tosh were confident of success.
Experiments to halt the loss of passengers from the company's buses — 2 million passenger journeys were lost last year, out of a total of 200m — had included selected cheap fares, season tickets and off-peak reductions in fares. Each had achieved some measure of success, but Mr Womar claimed that the off-peak reductions had stemmed the gradual loss of passengers.
The idea of travel vouchers was first considered by Midland Red some months ago, when the approach to Reckitt and Colman was suggested. The vouchers, which will be available on 288,000 cartons of Zip firelighters (recommended retail price 7p) from December 6 to March 31 1972, will be worth lp towards the fare on any stage service of Midland Red throughout the company's widespread operating territory. One or more vouchers will be accepted by the conductor or driver/operator (51 per cent of Midland Red's stage services are now one-man operated) as part of a fare or a complete fare. The vouchers will not be exchanged for cash, however. Major towns within the promotional area include Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, Lichfield, Nuneaton, Bromsgrove, Redditch, Kidderminster, Stourport, Tamworth, Dudley, Shrewsbury, Leamington, Stafford, Warwick and Ludlow. Zip firelighters will be on sale throughout all normal retail outlets — principally grocers.
Posters announcing the scheme will be on display in every retail outlet stocking Zip in the test area. Midland Red will be undertaking a major advertising campaign employing its own vehicles, booking offices and travel centres. Several hundred buses will carry posters similar to those on the bus illustrated.
Emerging product One might well ask "Why firelighters?"
when discussing the new project. The answer was supplied by Mr Tosh, who stated that three-fifths of homes in the United Kingdom still used solid fuel for part, or all, of their heating requirements. Firelighters had only really emerged in the past few years, he claimed.
During the peak heating period of the winter months, an average of two packets of Zip were consumed each week, and salet turnover was in the order of £5m. "In many ways this is an ideal exercise", Mr Tosl. declared. He believed that the firelightei user was very much a bus traveller. "It ma) well be that Midland Red's initiative hm opened up an entirely new field of promotional activity — both for passengel transport companies and for brandec goods", he concluded.