A campaign to welcome passengers back to the railway after lockdown.
The Coronavirus pandemic had made passengers hesitant to travel by train.
Network Rail wanted to help encourage passengers back to rail travel, following the (partial) lifting of lockdown restrictions.
Network Rail tasked us with creating a behaviour change campaign to encourage passengers to trust rail travel once again. The campaign would be activated at Network Rail managed stations throughout the country.
A campaign to welcome passengers back to the railway after lockdown.
Project summary
- Research and insights
- Campaign strategy
- Messaging development
- Concept development
- Channel planning
- Copywriting
- Graphic design
- Animation and motion graphics
- Video production and editing
Approach
We began by taking a deep dive into the research with Network Rail. This revealed that while commuters were the primary group of passengers before the pandemic, this had shifted to leisure travellers following the easing of restrictions. It also told us that under-35s were more likely to want to travel by train. So we could most effectively reach a younger audience, we proposed an integrated campaign using paid social and influencer partnerships.
Our campaign concept “Adventure awaits! Who's in?" had a striking look and feel that pushed the corporate brand guidelines to create a passenger-friendly approach. Our creative invoked a sense of forward motion and momentum, mimicking a WhatsApp style conversation to make the campaign relatable to the target audience.
We produced a suite of fast-cut, Edgar Wright-style videos that depicted a conversation happening between friends discussing where they might go on an adventure by rail. The videos were deliberately short so we could use them on YouTube and Instagram. They all used a blend of filmed footage, stock imagery and footage, with engaging graphics to make the most of our client's budget, while ensuring cohesion to the overall campaign concept.
Impact
The campaign ran for six weeks and was seen over 2 million times on Facebook and 594 times on YouTube – with an impressive view-through-rate of 48%.
This campaign was instrumental in helping to regain the public’s trust in rail travel after such a turbulent and unprecedented time.
