CrossCountry animation

Before the pandemic, commuters were the main users of the rail network.

But since the pandemic ended, we’ve seen a shift towards leisure travellers as the more prominent passenger group. As a train operating company that deals predominantly with leisure travellers rather than commuters, CrossCountry wanted to raise awareness of the importance of their service by educating Network Rail staff about CrossCountry’s role on the network.

Network Rail asked us to support them with an internal drive to demonstrate how much they valued their relationship with CrossCountry, and how they were committed to working with them to continue to improve services for passengers.

Project summary

Concept development
Graphic design
Copywriting
Animation

Approach

We began by hosting workshops with CrossCountry and Network Rail to understand their challenges and work out the best solution. From this, we proposed an animation as this would help shape the audience’s understanding of CrossCountry in a simple and engaging way. Our designers, animators and script writers then collaborated to establish the messages we wanted to convey to the audience.

As CrossCountry’s core business is centred around leisure travel, we developed a creative concept for the animation that followed a leisure and tourism themed look and feel, while making sure that it was also a true interpretation of CrossCountry’s brand guidelines. Our story highlighted multiple locations in Britain and included as many job roles within the rail network as possible, and we ensured that the character representation was diverse and inclusive throughout. This was to make it relatable to the widest possible audience, so that the audience could see themselves within the story. We made sure our video was accessible by adding captions.

Impact

The final animation was delivered to both CrossCountry and Network Rail for their internal use. Our client was delighted with the end result and had high praise for our work on the project.

"Eleven took on the challenge of creating an internal comms piece that would work both within our organisation and for CrossCountry, and they really hit the nail on the head with the animation. They were able to draw on their rail industry experience to develop a creative approach and script that perfectly captured what we were trying to say, while speaking the right language for reaching the target audience."

Senior Communications Manager

Network Rail