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Rail Delivery Group tries to persuade us that “Britain runs on rail” in new M&C campaign

More of us are travelling by train, but less happy about it seemingly.

So a newish entity called the Rail Delivery Group is running a mixed media campaign from M&C Saatchi, plugging its £50bn plan to improve the railways. It features a nifty redesign of the old British Rail logo.

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This is all fine and dandy but one wonders what effect an ad campaign can have when the headlines are dominated by, for example, the work to rule and strikes on Southern Railways which mean that passengers in a large area of the country don’t actually have a functioning rail service.

The theme of this campaign is ‘Britain runs on rail.’ Well sometimes it does and at other times it doesn’t.

Oh, and someone travelling to Bradford from London told me this week that the air conditioning in the carriage on his Virgin train had broken down the previous day but still hadn’t been repaired on what was the hottest day of the year. When he asked about a transfer to first class he was told it would cost £77 and there probably wasn’t any room anyway. This unwelcome intelligence came from a so-called ‘train director.’

Rail Delivery Group presumably represents operators as well as entities like Network Rail, in charge of the track. One might wonder if this supposed £50bn is actually doing any good. And whose money are they spending anyway?

Be that as it may, M&C Saatchi is good at this stuff and the above is a pleasant ad. And the agency is used to making the best of unpopular clients thanks to its work in politics, which presumably helps.

MAA creative scale: 7.

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