East Coast invests £7m in marketing campaign
Train operator East Coast is launching a £7m campaign with the bulk of the spend being invested in TV spots.
The television campaign breaks with a ‘road block’ strategy on all channels tomorrow (September 7).
The campaign introduces the trainline’s new strapline ‘Feel at Home’ and is the first work for the company by agency Beattie Guinness Bungay.
The first ad shows the interior of a train transformed into a series of “at home” environments and is designed to show how customers can relax and feel comfortable on East Coast’s trains.
The ad will be run across channels such as Sky1, Channel 4 and Channel 5 and ITV1 near simultaneously on Saturday (September 7), with programming spots in shows such Grand Designs and The X Factor.
It will also be shown in independent cinemas and on video-on-demand channels via broadcaster’s online apps. Forthcoming shorter ads will focus on particular aspects of the operator’s service and there will also be supporting outdoor, radio, experiential and social media activity.
East Coast runs trains between London and Scotland via Yorkshire. The franchise was handled by National Express until it was renationalised in 2009 and a tender for a new commercial operator is expected to be offered in February 2015.
The operator’s commercial and customer service director Peter Williams says: “The Feel at Home campaign is about the motivating idea of something which already happens: our customers comfortably travelling on our trains.”
The social media campaign includes a ‘Bid for a Seat’ Facebook app created especially to complement the campaign. The app invites users to choose an East Coast origin and destination and they are then asked to bid on the price they think will be the lowest available for that journey.
Every week throughout the autumn, the person who submits the lowest unique bid will win a First Class return journey for two people travelling together between any two destinations served by East Coast. The social media work has been devised by Umpf PR and media planning and buying by Havas.
