Branding and marketing blunders or failures on the railway.

[2392]

And of course there was the period when Northern [Rail] was rebranded Northern Spirit . My local BBC radio station [Radio Newcastle] had no end of fun on their breakfast show . Where they had a somewhat informal competition [there were no prises] to see who of the listeners could come up with an equally ridiculous [in their case] name for their breakfast show, that had no connection with the show or radio.

 

[norbitonflyer]

One blunder I recall was to offer free unlimited travel for one day to all Senior Railcard holders; on a Saturday - in June! No booking needed, just turn up and go. It must have been the early 1980s. It was full and standing, with septuagenarians sitting on the floor, the luggage racks, the tables, everywhere. I felt a bit conspicuous, as I was less than half the age of any one else on board.

What was even more inept was that apparently no-one had briefed the TTI, who started his rounds shortly after leaving Paddington and seemed taken aback that all the passengers had railcards, but only one (me) had a ticket! After having had several of the leaflets advertising the promo waved at him, and seeing how difficult progress would be down the packed train, he decided to retreat to the guards compartment for the rest of the journey. The train emptied out at Bath.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

Agree with HS2/High Speed 2 being a branding faux-pas. It should of course be "High Speed Line 2" or HSL2.

And the less said about "Northern Powerhouse Rail", the better. Given the politician who came up with it, "Northern Poorhouse Rail" would be more appropriate.

 

[XAM2175]

But what a crying shame Avanti West Coast didn't become London Midland Scottish Railway.

I'm rather glad it didn't, to be honest. For one, the whole big-4 nostalgia thing is getting pretty tired, and second I've no confidence that they'd have managed to do it anywhere near as well as the only two who have pulled it off, GNER and GWR.

 

[Mcr Warrior]

Sometimes the frequently changing train operating company acronyms do all seem a bit like a ladleful of alphabet soup (or a bad hand at Scrabble, if you prefer).

 

[O L Leigh]

I can’t pretend to be a fan of Avanti’s latest campaign.

“This is how travel should feel” - Cut to shot of a Pendolino. It always elicits the response “As bad as that…?”

 

[sor]

Where to start (with the obvious caveat that this is opinion)?

Avanti choosing a meaningless brand after years of the industry slowly switching over to geographical operator names. (Lumo get a pass due being OA, as do Grand Central, who don't actually serve anywhere in the centre of the country).

One, and also First, for obvious reasons.

Virgin. Sure, it's a "strong brand" (whatever the chuff that means!) but it's always been a stupid name for any business. I get the impression that Branson sniggers like Finbarr Saunders every time anyone says his company name. To me it's childish and puerile. Get in the sea!

Northern Spirit was a pretty rubbish name too... they had nice liveries though!

Not that geographical names (especially those based on history and heritage) are necessarily any better. e.g. South West Trains / South Western Railway, which really means "south west of London" than "south west of England" given their service area & frequencies. GWR also - again it's more history than modern day meaning.

I know it's trendy for airports to do it (eg "London" Oxford), but why do a few modern day train companies need to have London in the name?

 

[MarkyT]

This was covered in a BBC documentary a few years ago - can't remember the title unfortunately - apparently BR wanted Terry Wogan instead but research did show that the other person was more popular so that's who they went with.
I also remember a BR poster with Gary Glitter (a 1970s glam rock star for our younger readers) advertising the Young Person's Railcard - that is also somewhat unfortunate given subsequent revelations...

Due to years of ToTP and Fix it etc, Savile, in particular, was especially well known to younger people at the time of the BR campaign, a major future market as far as advertisers were concerned. I think many found the man and his screen persona strange, but few would have guessed at the scale of his criminal debauchery.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

But what a crying shame Avanti West Coast didn't become London Midland Scottish Railway.

Well, being nothing like the old LMS network would be one reason.
GWR is vaguely like the original (but not in Wales or the west midlands).
LNER is a small ECML subset of the original (without GE, GC and NB routes).
The HS2 connection might make it undesirable to limit "Avanti" to its LNWR/Caley roots/routes, though it may turn out that way if the eastern leg is not built.
Maybe the Trenitalia element had an impact on the naming.

 

[quattromatt]

Northern spirit was plain embarrassing.

 

[Bill57p9]

Caledonian Sleeper: "journey of a night time"
Most recent Aberdeen passengers have faced the journey of a nightmare.

 

[dorsetdesiro]

Not that geographical names (especially those based on history and heritage) are necessarily any better. e.g. South West Trains / South Western Railway, which really means "south west of London" than "south west of England" given their service area & frequencies. GWR also - again it's more history than modern day meaning.

I know it's trendy for airports to do it (eg "London" Oxford), but why do a few modern day train companies need to have London in the name?

SW may refer to the South Western Mainline which most of its services run on - the confusion with SW London or SW England is understandable. I think SWR can sometimes come across as confusing when it runs in somewhere like Berkshire, Hants & Surrey which it doesn't really serve most of SW England which GWR really serves this purpose!

This may have made more sense if the old Wessex Trains at the time was merged with SWT instead of FGW then SWR would be serving Cornwall today.

I do remember being perplexed at seeing Network SouthEast operating in Dorset & Devon years ago - ha ha.

While on the subject of SWR, its website is promoting the SWR Rewards scheme, its image of a train with the livery applied incorrectly with the dark blue ends at the wrong angle!

 

[d9009alycidon]

Anything that has branded itself with the term .....rail, or Network seems to be an easy target for ridicule by the simple change of one letter, hence Notwork South East, Network Fail, Scotfail

 

[2392]

Northern spirit was plain embarrassing.

Quite agree and so did my local BBC Radio station, as I mentioned. Hence their light hearted ribbing of the then outfit. Like a lot of the late BR sector names i.e. Regional Railways....... InterCity, Freightliner etc at least Northern Rail made sense.

Edit: Made it sound like some sort of new Whisky/Gin/Vodka. A new Northern Spirit! To quote their tag line.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Thameslink - "we're with you" - no, you're not, you're against me!

(This feels like a slightly less than honest copy of the Lloyds Bank ads)

 

[dorsetdesiro]

I'm rather glad it didn't, to be honest. For one, the whole big-4 nostalgia thing is getting pretty tired, and second I've no confidence that they'd have managed to do it anywhere near as well as the only two who have pulled it off, GNER and GWR.

Fair enough about the nostaglia, I reckon Grayling at the time was attempting to bring in all the TOCs under quasi geographical-traditional naming ending with Railway. That is obviously now irrelevant with Avanti, the unchanged Northern and Southeastern also the future GBR.

WMR, EMR and SWR are entirely new names as SWR otherwise could have been LSWR today - I do remember the fake maroon GWR style branding released before SWR's debut!

 

[norbitonflyer]

Not that geographical names (especially those based on history and heritage) are necessarily any better. . GWR also - again it's more history than modern day meaning.

East Coast and West Coast being particular misnomers - the "EastCoast" main line serves nowhere on the east coast south of Hadrian's Wall, and the "West Coast" main line briefly touches the coast at Hest Bank (the nearest station served by AWC being Lancaster).

In the early days of Shadow Franchising, the East Coast operation put out an advert which inadvertently made this point, by showing an outline of Great Britain, but with a straight line between the Thames and the Forth, suggesting to disgruntled people in Lincs and East Yorkshire that they had been cut off by the franchise - which indeed they had - it was 2019 before direct services to Lincoln were restored, and south Humberside is still waiting.

Great Western I think have made a mistake with their livery, which is both historically inaccurate (except on the Class 57s) and very drab. In the olden days GWR coaches, including DMUs, were painted in the famous "chocolate and cream".
6667.1507454018.jpg (1200×839) (railpictures.net)
The IEPs might look quite good in that - if you want to make them look more like GWR expresses of old, have the end cars in Brunswick Green.

It is interesting how people still want to hark back to the "Big Four". Apart from the GWR, those companies only existed for 25 years. Some franchises - Chiltern and C2C for example - have now exceeded that.

 

[dk1]

Well, being nothing like the old LMS network would be one reason.
GWR is vaguely like the original (but not in Wales or the west midlands).
LNER is a small ECML subset of the original (without GE, GC and NB routes).
The HS2 connection might make it undesirable to limit "Avanti" to its LNWR/Caley roots/routes, though it may turn out that way if the eastern leg is not built.
Maybe the Trenitalia element had an impact on the naming.

Yeah I get that but it still sounds good.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Maybe the Trenitalia element had an impact on the naming.

It could have been a good brand - Le Frecce have a good reputation which could have been associated with it, including their high quality interiors, three classes done in a non-hotchpotch manner, Illy coffee, quality Italian food etc. It just wasn't, because FirstGroup. More of a FIAT (Fix It Again Tomorrow) than an Alfa.

 

[Jim the Jim]

I approve of historically inspired names in general, but only if the reason behind the name is obvious. It's pretty clear why it's the "London and North Eastern Railway", but "Great Northern" makes very little sense for trains that go nowhere near the North unless you happen to be one of the few people aware of the historical context.

 

[MarkyT]

I approve of historically inspired names in general, but only if the reason behind the name is obvious. It's pretty clear why it's the "London and North Eastern Railway", but "Great Northern" makes very little sense for trains that go nowhere near the North unless you happen to be one of the few people aware of the historical context.

If the inner services were transferred to TfL Overground, then as a supplementary 'line' descriptor, Great Northern wouldn't be too bad in terms of the network's relationship to London, but going to Cambridge, Peterborough, Kings Lynn doesn't it probably doesn't make much sense to the average punter, apart from any familiarity it may have gained since being used. In the BR era, the name 'Great Northern Electrics' was used widely for the 1970s route modernisation scheme and improved services thereby enabled.

 

[YorksLad12]

Quite agree and so did my local BBC Radio station, as I mentioned. Hence their light hearted ribbing of the then outfit. Like a lot of the late BR sector names i.e. Regional Railways....... InterCity, Freightliner etc at least Northern Rail made sense.

Edit: Made it sound like some sort of new Whisky/Gin/Vodka. A new Northern Spirit! To quote their tag line.

Which it was. There was a bit of hoo-ha at the time, as the whisky came first. I think the whisky company decided to rebrand; partly for peace and quiet, partly because they didn't want to be associated with such a terrible service

Would the London Underground Tube Map count? I've got the wafer-thin December 2020 edition in front of me. Is either end of the Emirates Air Line below ground? The rest of the map is so small it can't be read easily... and they still have Crossrail to add. I'm not keen on Crossrail being the Elizabeth Line either, but there you go. I understand *why* it includes all the rail connections... but that isn't the point of this map/diagram. Do a different (larger, more legible) one for all of that. Harrumph.

 

[Class360/1]

From the early privatisation days, Connex introducing their ridiculous 'circus' uniform was a bit of a disaster. Whilst it wasn't "branding" as such, it certainly didn't help their image!

Definitely. Connex just looked dated and not right (in general)

 

[Bletchleyite]

Quite agree and so did my local BBC Radio station, as I mentioned. Hence their light hearted ribbing of the then outfit. Like a lot of the late BR sector names i.e. Regional Railways....... InterCity, Freightliner etc at least Northern Rail made sense.

Edit: Made it sound like some sort of new Whisky/Gin/Vodka. A new Northern Spirit! To quote their tag line.

To be fair to them, "Spirit of the North" would have worked as a strapline rather than a brand name. After all, Qantas' tagline is "Spirit of Australia", and nobody asks for a double Qantas and Coke from the trolley when it comes round.

 

[Doctor Fegg]

Corporate vanity has been a long-standing branding failure IMO: First Great Western, First Great Eastern, First Capital Connect, Arriva Trains Wales, Chiltern Railways by Arriva, etc. etc.

It works for Virgin. Virgin is a strong, respected brand. I personally don't like Branson and all his ways, but all the studies of "brand equity" show that people like me are in the minority. So calling your TOC "Virgin Trains" is worth something.

But "First Great Western"? If people recognise the brand "First" at all, it's from local buses, which are a less premium product than an inter-city train. So it's actually making the product seem less appealing than a simple "Great Western" would do.

First has belatedly recognised this, hence GWR, Buses of Somerset, etc. Why Arriva has chosen to strengthen its corporate branding, I have no idea.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Thameslink - "we're with you" - no, you're not, you're against me!
(This feels like a slightly less than honest copy of the Lloyds Bank ads)

P&O European Ferries had "We're with you all the way" as their strapline - until the sinking of Herald of Free Enterprise off Zeebrugge in 1987.

 

[Halish Railway]

Arriva Rail North’s attempts to rebrand were shocking. Unlike with AWC or WMT, virtually no branding appeared at stations vice a couple of posters, no logos on the name boards at all.

No wonder Northern, even with the OoLR arrangement is still referred to as ‘Northern Rail’. I know that Northern Rail (Abellio/Serco) had a bad rap (mainly for reasons out of their control which have been extensively discussed elsewhere), but they were fairly good at branding, with the ‘Northern Electrics’ brand doing a good job at attracting passengers to what were essentially clapped out 319s.

It’s a shame that the Northern Connect brand didn’t come to fruition, once again due to for reasons out of Northern’s control.

 

[RT4038]

P&O European Ferries had "We're with you all the way" as their strapline - until the sinking of Herald of Free Enterprise off Zeebrugge in 1987.

But the Herald of Free Enterprise was owned by Townsend Thoresen, so what has P&O got to do with it?

 

[Darandio]

But the Herald of Free Enterprise was owned by Townsend Thoresen, so what has P&O got to do with it?

P&O operated Townsend Thoresen at that point, they were in the process of rebranding the fleet when the sinking occured.

 

[RT4038]

P&O operated Townsend Thoresen at that point, they were in the process of rebranding the fleet when the sinking occured.

Didn't know that!