{"id":2658,"date":"2026-07-31T08:42:49","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/?p=2658"},"modified":"2026-07-31T08:42:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T08:42:49","slug":"chasing-buses-in-london-the-story-behind-a-mediterranean-tourism-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/chasing-buses-in-london-the-story-behind-a-mediterranean-tourism-campaign\/","title":{"rendered":"Chasing Buses in London: The Story Behind a Mediterranean Tourism Campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mediterranean<\/h1>\n

How We Found Thirty Advertising Buses Among Nine Thousand Operating Across London<\/h2>\n

There are approximately 9,000 buses operating in London<\/a> every single day.<\/p>\n

I was looking for thirty of them.<\/p>\n

More specifically, I was looking for thirty buses carrying advertisements promoting Almu\u00f1\u00e9car, a beautiful town on Spain’s Mediterranean coast.<\/p>\n

At first glance, the assignment sounded straightforward enough. The campaign had already been arranged, the advertisements had been installed and the client would soon be arriving in London so that we could photograph them standing proudly beside their advertisements.<\/p>\n

Then came the problem.<\/p>\n

Nobody knew exactly where the buses were.<\/p>\n

“London Buses Are There to Transport People”<\/h2>\n

The advertising agency naturally wanted precise locations.<\/p>\n

After all, if advertisements had been placed on thirty buses, surely somebody would know exactly where they were operating.<\/p>\n

The company responsible for placing the advertisements explained the situation rather differently.<\/p>\n

They told us:<\/p>\n

“London buses are first and foremost there to move people around. Routes may change to suit the day’s transport needs.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, we would have to find them ourselves.<\/p>\n

Turning a Problem into a Plan<\/h2>\n

\"Mediterranean<\/p>\n

I decided to arrive in London two days before the client.<\/p>\n

My first step was to contact the company responsible for managing the advertising campaign. They supplied me with a list of routes that the buses might potentially be assigned to.<\/p>\n

From there, I started building a strategy.<\/p>\n

I downloaded route information and carefully studied the network, looking for locations where three, four or even five routes overlapped. If the buses were constantly moving around London, it made sense to position myself where I had the greatest chance of seeing them.<\/p>\n

At the same time, I requested details of the bus depots where the vehicles would begin and end their journeys.<\/p>\n

This became my backup plan.<\/p>\n

\"Destination \"\" \"\"<\/p>\n

Day One: Finding the Depots<\/h2>\n

After a long day of travelling across London and investigating several possible locations, I eventually found the depot in West Ham where some of the buses carrying the advertisements were based.<\/p>\n

Immediately, I knew that my contingency plan was secure.<\/p>\n

If we couldn’t find the buses in central London, we could at least locate them at the depot.<\/p>\n

Day Two: Hunting for Buses in Central London<\/h2>\n

\"London<\/p>\n

The following day, I headed into central London and positioned myself at several points where the routes converged.<\/p>\n

Gradually, the plan started to work.<\/p>\n

One bus appeared.<\/p>\n

Then another.<\/p>\n

Then another.<\/p>\n

The challenge was no longer simply finding them. It was finding them in locations that would create attractive, memorable photographs for the client.<\/p>\n

Day Three: The Clients Arrive<\/h2>\n

When the clients arrived, we put the plan into action.<\/p>\n

To this day, I still don’t know exactly how we managed it, but somehow we continually found the buses exactly where we needed them.<\/p>\n

Even better, many of them appeared in some of London’s most recognisable and attractive locations.<\/p>\n

One by one, we photographed the clients proudly standing beside the advertisements promoting their hometown on the Mediterranean coast.<\/p>\n

What had initially appeared to be an impossible assignment became a huge success.<\/p>\n

The Moment That Made It All Worthwhile<\/h2>\n

\"Social<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The campaign itself generated excellent visibility, but the most rewarding part came afterwards.<\/p>\n

Several people originally from the Almu\u00f1\u00e9car region, as well as tourists who knew the area well, spotted the advertisements while travelling around London.<\/p>\n

They photographed the buses and shared the images on social media.<\/p>\n

That was perhaps the most powerful form of advertising of all.<\/p>\n

There was nothing artificial about it.<\/p>\n

There was no script.<\/p>\n

No carefully constructed marketing message.<\/p>\n

Just genuine excitement from people who recognised a familiar place thousands of kilometres from home.<\/p>\n

As marketers, we often spend enormous amounts of time trying to create authentic engagement.<\/p>\n

Sometimes the most memorable interactions happen naturally.<\/p>\n

Lessons Learned from the Campaign<\/h2>\n

This project reinforced several important lessons.<\/p>\n

Preparation Matters<\/h3>\n

Without arriving early and studying the routes in advance, the assignment would have been considerably more difficult.<\/p>\n

Always Have a Backup Plan<\/h3>\n

Finding the depots gave us another option if conditions in central London proved difficult.<\/p>\n

Local Knowledge Is Invaluable<\/h3>\n

Understanding the geography, transport systems and behaviour patterns of a city as large as London can make the difference between success and failure.<\/p>\n

Adaptability Is Essential<\/h3>\n

The routes changed constantly, which meant we needed to adapt our plans throughout the project.<\/p>\n

Authentic Engagement Is Extremely Powerful<\/h3>\n

The social media posts created by people who recognised their hometown generated something money can’t easily buy: genuine enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

Chasing Buses in London: The Story Behind a Mediterranean Tourism Campaign – Final Thoughts<\/h2>\n

At first glance, this assignment appeared to be about photographing buses.<\/p>\n

In reality, it was about much more than that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was about understanding a client’s objectives, anticipating problems, developing solutions and remaining flexible enough to adapt when circumstances changed.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, it demonstrated that successful campaigns depend not only upon creativity but also upon persistence<\/a>, preparation and attention to detail.<\/p>\n

Finding thirty buses among approximately 9,000 operating across London every day might have seemed impossible.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, impossible assignments often make the best stories.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How We Found Thirty Advertising Buses Among Nine Thousand Operating Across London There are approximately 9,000 buses operating in London every single day. I was looking for thirty of them. More specifically, I was looking for thirty buses carrying advertisements promoting Almu\u00f1\u00e9car, a beautiful town on Spain’s Mediterranean coast. At first glance, the assignment sounded… <\/p>\n

Leer m\u00e1s<\/a> <\/p>","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2661,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,1],"tags":[51,52,55,54,53],"class_list":["post-2658","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing-news","category-uncategorized","tag-chasing-buses-in-london-the-story-behind-a-mediterranean-tourism-campaign","tag-london-bus-advertising-campaign","tag-mediterranean-tourism-marketing","tag-outdoor-advertising-london","tag-tourism-marketing-campaign"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2658"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2672,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2658\/revisions\/2672"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2658"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2658"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odsprojects.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2658"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}