Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards - 2024

Campaign: In Transit
Agency/Firm: Area 23, an IPG Health Company
Client: Callen-Lorde

The iconic voice of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s announcement system has also become a voice of transgender acceptance, thanks in part to a marketing campaign in New York City’s subways.

The voice of the subway, Bernie Wagenblast, whose loudspeaker pronouncements at mass transit hubs are known to most residents, recently re-recorded those announcements in a show of solidarity with transgender people. Wagenblast, 68, came out publicly as a transgender woman last year.

To introduce Wagenblast as the first transgender voice of transit in New York City, and to mark Transgender Day of Visibility in March, Area 23, the agency within IPG Health Company, helped develop a multichannel marketing campaign. The MTA, prominent LGBTQ+ health organization Callen-Lorde, and NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project joined forces to celebrate Wagenblast by sharing her new voice with straphangers. The campaign, called “In Transit,” ran for seven days leading up to the day when the newly recorded announcements from Wagenblast would play to 3.2 million subway riders.

To promote and introduce Wagenblast’s new announcements, the organizations ran a multimedia ad campaign, including billboards, a subway-ride-length podcast featuring Wagenblast, a website listing healthcare and other resources for trans people, and a promotional tour of New York City’s most famous LGBTQ+ historic sites. The groups paid to promote the podcast through posters and billboards. The effort also led to 600,000 social media impressions and 14.5 million-plus media impressions through news coverage, the agency said.