Watch Out for Guardian Angels on Main Street: Are These Characters The Right Choice for a Lightrail Safety Campaign??



Guardian Angels Campaign Urges Safety Around Public Transit

Valley Metro Guardian Angels/Image from Moses Inc.

Valley Metro needed a fun way to speak to their riders about the safety rules without being morbid, boring or condescending . . . OK, your MesaZona blogger gets that - and the importance of diversity -  but this visual concept seems like the illegitimate offspring of Men In Black and the models from Victoria's Secret + it's way off appealing to the demographics of both the people who live in downtown Mesa and the people who might want to visit downtown Mesa.
There are certain safety precautions to learn and practice with approaching light rail stations and using lightrail transit, but these three characters are way off the mark as representatives of safety education for transit. Sorry, but these angels are scary, lurking and watching, with one peeking over dark glasses to get a look. BAD MOSES

One version  of the purple sidewalk stickers on Main Street

With  Light Rail trains getting ready to roll into and out of downtown Mesa on August 22, 2015 Valley Metro is continuing a ridership safety campaign with stickers on the walkways at street intersections and mid-block crosswalks along the path of the new 3.1 mile extension of light rail stations on Main Street.

They thought the perfect vehicle for relaying their cautionary messages would be guardian angels with a little bit of 'tude, according to the agency's website.

Here's one of the sidewalk stickers on the north side of Main Street - it's conveniently below eye-level for approaching the crosswalk just east of the Center Street Station.

Moses Inc is the agency of record in a press release dated from January 2014 for a multi-million dollar five-year contract to help market lightrail, bus service and other transportation solutions in the Valley for safety education and business outreach to increase ridership.
The three characters might have worked for the opening of lightrail transit in Phoenix back in 2014, but it's questionable if they appeal to either downtown residents or visitors . . .  if an ad agency is getting paid "multi-millions" [according to their own press release] somebody from the ad agency should at least have gotten together with the biz development folks on Main Street to get to know what might work better > a friendly message perhaps?