BRITAIN RUNS ON RAIL

PAUL PRENTICE, senior media officer at the Rail Delivery Group, takes RAIL behind the scenes at King’s Cross, where a new TV advert was being filmed for the RDG

When you’re watching Coronation

Street, Ant & Dec and The Voice, don’t nip out and put the kettle on during the adverts. Keep watching your TV screen - and you might just catch a new advert illustrating what the railway does for Britain.

King’s Cross station was selected as one of four locations for the first televised national railway campaign in nearly 30 years, which is due to air for an initial four-week run in mid-March. Other locations were a recently reopened pier, a bridge overlooking a dual carriageway, and a supermarket

The 40-second film, produced by Moxie Pictures and M&C Saatchi for the Rail Delivery Group as part of the Britain Runs On Rail campaign, will be beamed to households across Britain in prime time slots. The film will be accompanied by a

series of billboard posters and newspaper advertisements, as well as appearing on trains and in stations.

There is, of course, a serious message: while promoting the virtues of Britain’s railway is always welcome (and long supported by

RAIL), this isn’t just about promoting the railway merely for the sake of attracting more people onto trains.

“Our wish is to engage with the British public about how rail is ever more crucial to their lives, and explain the journey the industry is on to transform the experience of our customers, secure the future of those working in the business and maximise the benefits to the nation,” explains RDG Communications Director Edward Welsh. The viewing public will be invited to visit the

Britain Runs On Rail website, to find out more about the improvements being made by rail companies in their area.

“This is the first time in many years the industry has come together to invest in raising public awareness on this scale,” adds Welsh.

“We want to explain that there is a capacity crunch, and that’s why we are delivering a Railway Upgrade Plan of more than £ 50 billion. We also need to show taxpayers and fare payers where their money is going, and sustain the support of the public and private sector for continued investment in the railway.”

The eagle-eyed will not have failed to notice an eye-catching reboot of the classic ‘Double Arrow’ logotype, designed by the lettering artist Gerry Barney for British Rail in 1965. In its new guise it serves as the campaign’s ‘ident’. There remains a huge amount of equity in the logo, with RDG research showing that the British public still have both a great affection for it, and an understanding of what it symbolises.

Even Barney, now in his late seventies and still undertaking the occasional design job in semiretirement, was impressed: “The new version of the logo really works. It reinforces the totality of Britain’s rail industry working together, and the diversity of the different companies and Network Rail. It’s a faithful adaptation of my original 1965 design.”