National Bus Company – PUBLICITY – THE GAINSBOROUGH EXPERIMENT 1979

Description

This 35-page document, “Publicity – The Gainsborough Experiment” (Report Number 28), was published by the National Bus Company’s Marketing & Operational Research department in August 1979 at a cost of £5. It presents a rare, early quantitative experiment to assess the impact of a local publicity package on bus usage and public awareness in Gainsborough’s Park Springs Estate. Visually, it features a detailed cover illustration of a Bristol LH bus, complemented by internal maps and reproductions of the actual publicity materials. The report documents a systematic “before and after” survey methodology, including self-completion questionnaires, providing invaluable historical data on consumer response to targeted bus service promotion. This makes it a significant primary source for transport historians, marketing strategists, and researchers seeking a unique snapshot of public transport marketing practices in the late 1970s.