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M&C Saatchi help East Midlands Trains connect with their passengers

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M&C Saatchi has created an emotionally charged new integrated campaign to drive the relaunch of East Midlands Trains, establishing a stronger identity for the brand. With East Midlands Trains having reached a key milestone in successfully negotiating an extension to its franchise, M&C Saatchi, along with partner agencies LIDA and Blue449, were tasked with creating a new marketing initiative to refresh the brand, drive awareness and ultimately increase passenger volumes.

With this relaunch we wanted to bring to life the friendly characteristics of the East Midlands Trains brand and service”

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The “Trains on the outside” campaign centres around three different TV ads, all based on heart-warming true stories and customer experiences of the East Midlands Trains service. The first such ad, launched this week, and is an animated film telling the true story of a mother whose child left his teddy bear on a train. She speaks to a lady who works at East Midlands Trains who has a similar spare toy that she sends to the young boy with a note saying that the missing teddy had simply been on holiday. It's all very twee, but it really gets the message across that the brand is trying harder to engage with its passengers. The ads were co-directed by Daniel Frost and Paul Layzell through Blink Productions.

Lost Teddy

The spots (the other two are to follow shortly) are part of an integrated campaign that sees M&C Saatchi conveying the message that East Midlands Trains has evolved significantly as a business, moving from a traditional rail operator approach which focuses rigidly on infrastructure and logistics to being genuinely customer service-led. The ads highlight this through charming animated stories, detailing the compassionate values that EMT employees have, and are encouraged to act on. The campaign will also run across print, radio, online, social and OOH. This is the first ATL campaign for the brand since 2011 following M&C Saatchi winning the East Midlands Trains advertising account in April 2008.

By working with M&C Saatchi, we’ve managed to get across some important messages about our people and the service we offer”

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Matt Hennell, Senior Account Director at M&C Saatchi, said: “A great day starts wit a great train journey. With this relaunch we wanted to encapsulate this while bringing to life the friendly characteristics of the East Midlands Trains brand and service. Having heard so many of the warming experiences people have had with this service, it was hard to single out which to focus on. But these three stories stood out, each having a particularly warm and human aspect to them.” Kate Squires, Group Marketing Manager at East Midlands Trains, added: “We’ve recently announced that our franchise will be continuing to at least March 2018 and as part of that, we’re investing around £13 million in a package of customer improvements. We have some great people at East Midlands Trains, and by working with M&C Saatchi, we’ve managed to get across some important messages about our people and the service we offer to our customers.”

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Matt Hennell (left) and Kate Squires (right)

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