On time, together for Govia Thameslink Railway

Train Operating Company Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) wanted to drive a positive behaviour change among passengers, gently reminding them about the small changes that will help their journeys run smoothly and on time.

The campaign ensured the message was simple and the personal benefit clear to achieve cut through and connection to drive behavioural change.

Passengers are regularly faced with messages telling them what to do and what not to do, but these rarely address why customers should care and, often, the ‘what should I do’ isn’t immediately obvious.

This created an opportunity to leverage behavioural insights and re-frame the statements and topics as clear benefits to show passengers ‘what’s in it for me’.

For some behaviours, such as pressing the alarm between stations or even staff assault, we are talking to the minority – not the majority – of passengers. Plus, most will see anything relating to a train running on time as the train operator’s responsibility – not theirs.

The commuter’s voice was used to create a series of refreshingly different creative treatments that used simple, standout expressions and messages that translated across media and into any language.

Amy GattCampaign Manager, Govia Thameslink Railway (GTR) said:

“We wanted to create standout, impactful creative that helped our customers to understand how they can help us to keep our trains running on time. We identified key ways that customer behaviour can have an impact on a train leaving a station, and created a suite of assets for each message, using ‘together’ as the consistent message on all assets. We were careful to keep the tone of the messages light given the nature of the messages. The creative has been well received both within the business and externally by customers. We look forward to seeing how effective the campaign is over time.”