Gray Line New York

Overview

Gray Line New York, New York City's iconic double-decker tour bus company has been a proud staple of the New York City tourism industry since 1926, bringing visitors to all the must-see stops on its signature red buses. While there is a strong association and solid brand awareness of Gray Line New York among tourists, this leading tourism company wanted to raise its profile even further to include New Yorkers, via a strategic A-list celebrity campaign.

Strategy

5W created and implemented a monthly strategic celebrity partnership series, aligning Gray Line New York with some of the world's most press-worthy celebrities, while continuing to position the brand as a New York City travel authority. To do this, we launched Gray Line New York's "Ride of Fame" monthly campaign, where the company recognizes and honors leading New Yorkers, whom they identify as exemplary community figures, by personalizing a bus in the fleet for each monthly "star".

Each month, 5W secures a celebrity to honor and manages a ribbon-cutting ceremony where the celebrity's own Gray Line New York double-decker bus is unveiled to the public, and to dozens of media outlets. Since the inception of the program, and as a result of 5W's work on behalf of Gray Line, the brand has partnered with many celebrities including Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Whoopi Goldberg, Liza Minnelli, Richard Dreyfuss, Cyndi Lauper, Reggie Jackson, Rachael Ray, and many others.

Results

With over a billion impressions thus far, 5W Public Relations has secured feature stories and broadcast segments on the Ride of Fame series including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, The New York Daily News, FOX News, FOX & Friends, NY1, PerezHilton, E! Entertainment News, ABC, NBC's LXTV, USA Today, The Insider, Entertainment Tonight, and others.