London Northwestern Railway
Rebranding LNR and creating the UK’s first straight-talking train company.
Strategic thinking / Brand identity
Work done as Design Director at Impero.
I must admit, rebranding a train was a dream job.
WMT came to us to help develop a new strategy and rebrand their flagship train line, London Northwestern Railway. British trains have a bad rep, and most are not loved. Our clients knew this, and they didn’t want to fall into the same pitfalls as other train brands.
They knew didn’t want to be a dusty, corporate train brand. So we had to find a way to stand out from the crowd and win over consumers.
The first thing we did was look to the consumer. We knew two things: One, the British do not love trains; And two, a range of factors meant it was impossible to run a perfect train in the UK.
But we also knew that LNR was one of the good ‘uns. We ran some undercover work, and found nothing but a lovely fleet of staff, and comfortable, clean trains (albeit not the fastest). The company was investing, and working hard to be good brand.
The answer was easy, why not just own it? We could be the straight-talking train company. We will be good, nice and never fluffy. This positioning gives us authority to talk about what makes LNR special – from staff to investment works – in a fun and engaging way, so people can be proud to choose LNR as their train line.
Making train journeys more bearable for our consumers with the World’s Longest I-Spy Game.
Perhaps we’re not the fastest train in the world, but we’re certainly good, and cheap(ish!). We wanted to make traveling with LNR good in every way. So we thought about ways to make journeys a little more bearable, and fun! One of our activation ideas was the World’s Longest I-Spy Game, where giant sculptures and inflatables would be plotted out along our train routes and kids would be given a spy kit – filled with binoculars and work books.
