Nottingham City Transport has enlisted the help of our students to become the voices of its new on-board audio announcements. And it was their sense of humour as well as their vocal skills the city’s award-winning bus operator was after…
With 75% of the buses across the fleet having on-board announcements – NCT have decided to add a touch of humour to their recordings. Students from the Level 3 Acting and Presenting course have written and recorded the new announcements in their in-house studio. ‘We are so grateful to be given this opportunity – it’s crazy that we’ll be able to hear ourselves on the bus” said Calvin Kirlew, right before heading into the recording booth. The positive impact of this project has also been highlighted by Leila Gold, Head of Marketing for Confetti Media Group: “This was a fantastic project for our students to be involved in. It gave them the experience of creative writing, sound recording and working to a brief with a real-life client – all skills many of them will need in the workplace after they graduate.”
Audio announcements are most commonly used to announce next stops, but can also inform passengers about diversions or customer courtesy. “Most of our passengers recognise the value of the audio announcements, but the feedback we were receiving suggested they were in need of a fresh approach!” explains NCT Marketing Manager, Anthony Carver-Smith. “We gave Confetti students the challenge of recording some new announcements that would both inform and engage our passengers. The students have certainly fulfilled their brief, giving us some great, cheeky one-liners, and I’m sure they’ll be a hit with our customers.”
The new messages will be rolled out across the network before Christmas, so listen out for them, including:
“For everybody’s comfort, please do not listen to music on a loudspeaker. Plug in your headphones and keep the volume down. Unless, of course, you do requests. In which case, Living on a Prayer by Bon Jovi, please.”
