With Abellio taking over the Stansted Express franchise a complete rebrand was required, with a key touchpoint being Stansted Airport itself. We worked closely with the Abellio mobilisation team to roll out the new guidelines across the complete range of Stansted Express collateral quickly. In fact, everything was delivered in just two short months, ready for the February 5th relaunch. Commuters and travellers woke up to find a seamless transition to a completely new brand look and feel both on and offline.
With new trains launching in May 2011, Stansted Express needed to move quickly to raise customer awareness and build anticipation pre-launch. The replacement of rolling stock after 30 years was a big event with a great message.
Hot on the heels of the ‘Coming Soon’ campaign to raise awareness, we ran a second tactical campaign immediately prior to the launch of the new trains. ‘Polished to Perfection’ was reinforced by imagery of real staff adding the finishing touches to the new fleet, underlining the pride and excitement felt by Stansted Express (both internally and externally) as the trains were about to roll out.
Now that the new trains are in action, we’ve launched a third concept ‘We Can’t Guarantee… But We Can Guarantee…’ to build on the brand profile and fundamentally honest message delivered through our fully integrated campaign. So far email has delivered a 20:1 ROI, PPC a 5:1 ROI and registrations on the website have increased by 10% a month.
Stansted Express identified that by extending their operating hours, one of their main audiences were travellers who convince members of their family or friends to do the airport run in the early/late hours of the day – the ‘Kiss and Fly’ group. Jacob Bailey created an emotionally engaging campaign, which empathised with the designated taxi driver and encouraged travellers to consider the train, rather than getting/keeping their loved ones up!
