‘Freedom all the way’ is train operator LNER’s current slogan and, if you ever watch the cheap digital channels, you’ll easily recognise red-haired brand character Eleanor. As you’ll see her in every single ad break (and ad breaks on the UK’s digital channels go on for ever and ever.) When the music strikes up you flip forward or back, probably to be confronted by yet another awful charity ad. No wonder everyone watches YouTube.
There isn’t much wrong with the ad, a perky effort from M&C Saatchi, but after a while it drives you nuts. Media planning and buying is courtesy of Omnicom’s Manning Gottlieb OMD, an agency once noted for its brain power. But surely no human has devised this brain-bending assault and battery?
M&C has to make its case as best it can but is travelling on LNER actually like this – ‘Freedom all the way?’ The old East Coast main line is now run by the Department of Transport after Virgin handed back the licence in 2018, saying it couldn’t make money.
The DfT, interestingly, recently commissioned some research that showed one in five rail passengers arriving into major cities in England and Wales during the morning rush hour were forced to stand. In some cases probably for hours.
The DfT report says the average number of commuters pouring into urban centres on a daily basis rose by 13% to 1.7 million on average between September and December 2023, compared to the same period the year before. But train operators increased seating capacity by just 2% over that time
One such operator was report commissioner DfT with LNER. Freedom all the way? Not as depicted in the ad one feels.
Two grumps then.
Seems to sum up today’s rather duplicitous UK.
