Today the results from the Metro Vancouver Transit Plebiscite were revealed and the residents of Metro Vancouver spoke loud and clear saying NO with a vote of 62% against the tax. Now the real question is what were the residents of Metro Vancouver voting against? Are we really saying that the residents of this area don’t understand that this 0.5% tax increase would have provided significant and much needed improvements to our Transit system. Everything the YES side was arguing for made complete sense and rarely did the NO campaign argue against all those facts. So why the no vote? I believe the no vote isn’t the residents saying no we don’t need this stuff but instead saying no we don’t trust Translink with our money.

Translink has a terrible brand image in the Greater Vancouver area and they have done very little to try and repair that. On top of that the attempts they have made to repair this brand image have actually made it worse. The residents of Metro Vancouver simply do not trust Translink with anything. The entire no side campaign was more of a target at why we cannot trust Translink with our money rather than why we don’t need this tax. One of the most important aspects of Marketing is brand image, if your prospective customers (or in this case voters) don’t like your company or the way it operates they will always choose against you. In this case many people don’t like Translink so they voted against giving them an additional $250 million a year for 10 years.

I’m not hear to say whether I think this bad image is earned or not because that does not matter, what matters is they have a bad brand image and this needs to be fixed. The yes side of the campaign spent potentially millions of dollars trying to convince people of the benefits and why they should vote yes but all in vain because people were voting against Translink not against improvements to infrastructure. Many companies do not realize how important brand image really is but they should try to think about it from a consumer point of view. If you really hate a company are you going to buy their product if you have a choice? If you give consumers a choice and have a brand image like Translink’s the odds are not in your favour.

Yes I’m sure some of these people did vote no against the tax all together not Translink but if Translink had a better image the vote would have been a yes more likely. Translink needs to put in major work on improving their image. Doing things like firing the CEO that everyone hates for a failed compass card roll-out but keeping him as a consultant with full salary and hiring an interim CEO with the same pay really does not help with improving your image. Crown Corporations, companies like BC Ferries and Translink which are 100% owned by the government (basically Crown Corporations), and not for profit companies always come under extra scrutiny for these types of things and should try to be more careful where their image is concerned. Not for profit companies are very careful with their images but Crown Corporations are basically monopolies so they usually don’t care because if you want to take a bus from UBC to Metrotown Translink is your only option. It is only at times like this when they realize that they should have cared.

 

Update: A poll that took place the day after the results came in (July 3rd) indicates exactly what I have stated above. 76% of those who voted no did so because of their lack of faith in Translink. 62% said that the way Translink operates needs to be reformed. Two things stood out to me from this poll and slightly surprised me. 72% of yes voters said they did not trust Translink either but basically said the pros outweighed the cons and 53% of no voters also said they don’t trust the Mayors’ Council either. You can read more about the poll at the second source link below.

Source: BIV; BIV 2 (Update)