Councils running bus ticket campaigns advertising the free childcare places for two-, three- and four-year-olds include Lincolnshire, North Yorkshire, Coventry City, Darlington Borough, Milton Keynes, Stoke-on-Trent City, Redcar and Cleveland Borough, Reading Borough, Central Bedfordshire and Calderdale.
Lincolnshire County Council ran its campaign during February and March, advertising the 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds on the reverse of more than one million bus tickets on journeys across Lincoln, Gainsborough, Skegness and Grantham.
Ticketmedia, the company behind bus ticket advertising, estimated that more than 80,000 adverts were seen by bus passengers in Lincoln, Gainsborough and Skegness, and 250,000 in Grantham.
The county council said the aim of advertising on the reverse of bus tickets was to target local parents with eligible two-year-olds who were unaware of the free childcare offer.
Geraldine O’Neill, senior leader of Lincolnshire County Council, said, ‘Lincolnshire is a very rural county; as such it can prove challenging reaching families in more remote areas. We’ve advertised the free childcare offer within towns. However, we were conscious the information may not have been seen by these families with eligible children, who are more likely to use buses as means of transport.’
Ms O’Neill said since running the bus ticket campaign, the council has received more queries from parents about the places.
Lincolnshire County Council has also run advertising campaigns on the back of toilet doors in shopping centres and large supermarkets across the county. During the Christmas period, the council promoted the free childcare offer on the back of receipts from Argos to capture families visiting the store to buy gifts for their children.
