STAGECOACH ANNOUNCES ITS NEW “DIRECTORS OF TEENAGE COMMUNICATIONS”
A group of teenage friends from Gwent and Monmouthshire have been announced as the new ‘Directors of Teenage Communication’ for Stagecoach in South Wales.
To celebrate its new discount travel scheme for young people, Stagecoach VIP, Stagecoach in South Wales launched a competition to secure the next generation of budding marketers and social media experts to help develop a Teen Out Guide and promote the scheme this summer.
Jade Powell and Rachel Bird from Blackwood, and Jessica Jones from Abergavenny, all 16 and students at Blackwood Comprehensive, joined together to create the winning team selected for the summer job of a lifetime as Directors of Teenage Communication at Wales’ biggest bus operator.
The competition encouraged teenagers to enter via social media sharing their best experiences in South Wales using the hashtag #StagecoachVIP. Shortlisted entrants were then tasked to write a film or restaurant review and explain how they would promote this using social media.
On top of their salary, Jade, Jessica and Rachel’s new roles will enable them to attend and review some awesome events this summer, including concerts, restaurants and films, whilst using a Stagecoach VIP travel card to get around by bus. They’ll also help to create social marketing campaigns to reach the teenage market in South Wales.
Jessica Jones was one of the three lucky winners. She said: “This will be an amazing opportunity for Jade, Rachel and myself and will give us our first experience of working in the real world. Both Jade and I want to go into journalism so this will be a great experience for the future as we’ll be working closely with Stagecoach in South Wales to blog, tweet, video and share things to do in the region, creating an online ‘Teen Out’ Guide.
“We heard about the competition when a roadshow visited our school and all created twitter posts to show the different reasons why we love South Wales. I’m hoping we’re going to have fun learning how to successfully write our blog and share our experiences, and seeing even more of South Wales by bus.”
John Gould, managing director at Stagecoach in South Wales said: “We had a great response to our VIP competition which demonstrated just how passionate the younger members of the South Wales community are about our region.
“Jessica, Jade and Rachel impressed us with their entries which included tweets of their favourite places in South Wales including Ponty’s Big Weekend, seeing McBusted in Cardiff and the beautiful local countryside and did very well in the interview task. They now have a 6-week paid summer placement at our Stagecoach offices in Porth.”
The new Stagecoach VIP scheme entitles everyone under the age of 19 to receive a third off all Stagecoach adult bus tickets on every Stagecoach service in Wales.
“We have developed the VIP discount scheme to encourage more young people to use public transport,” continues John Gould. “This is thought to be the first time a major bus operator has introduced an initiative of this kind which we hope to expand nationally later in the year.”
The discounted travel will apply to all Stagecoach bus tickets in South Wales, including singles, returns, weekly, monthly and annual tickets. More details are available at www.stagecoach-vip.com
**Photocaption: Stagecoach in South Wales’ new Directors of Teenage Communication take a ride with managing director, John Gould
L-R Jade Powell, John Gould, managing director of Stagecoach in South Wales, Jessica Jones, Rachel Bird
Media Contact:
Emma Campbell and Ellie McParlin at O PR
Emma@opr.co.uk / Ellie@opr.co,uk
0191 232 5690
Notes to editors:
The completion to find Stagecoach in South Wales’ Directors of Teenage Communication was run between 6 May to 29 June 2014
Stagecoach Group
· Stagecoach Group is a leading international public transport group, with extensive operations in the UK, United States and Canada. The Group employs around 35,000 people, and operates bus, coach, train, and tram services.
· Stagecoach is one of UK’s biggest bus and coach operators with around 8,000 buses and coaches. Around 2.5 million passengers travel on Stagecoach's buses every day on a network stretching from south-west England to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. The Group’s business includes major city bus operations in London, Liverpool, Newcastle, Hull, Manchester, Oxford, Sheffield and Cambridge. Low-cost coach service, megabus.com, operates between around 60 towns and cities across the UK.
· Stagecoach is a major UK rail operator, running the South West Trains, Island Line and East Midlands Trains networks. It has a 49% shareholding in Virgin Rail Group, which operates the West Coast inter-city rail franchise.
· Stagecoach also operates the Supertram light rail network in Sheffield.
· In North America, Stagecoach operates around 2,900 buses and coaches in the United States and Canada. Megabus.com links around 130 key locations in North America. Stagecoach is also involved in operating commuter and transit services, contracted bus services, charters, sightseeing tours and a small number of school bus services.
