How experiential strategy increased brand awareness, ensuring success for Eurostar campaign

Surrounding the theatre was an educational exhibition. This featured a giant interactive map of destinations, highlighting fast journey times. Graphic panels and iMacs offered more insights into key destinations and rail travel’s sustainable advantages. BEcause brand ambassadors helped visitors learn more about Eurostar’s sustainability record and its new “Cut a Quarter” website. Daily prize ticket draws and 25% discounts for bookings made at the event completed the experience.

8,000 consumers visited the dome in total, with over 500 people watching a 15 minute live performance every day. 91% said they would be more likely to travel with Eurostar as a result of the experience. Although bookings weren’t a primary objective, over £6,000 worth of sales were generated at the event.

Background

High-speed rail operator Eurostar has long had a strong commitment to sustainability.

In 2006, the company commissioned research which found that Eurostar journeys between London and Paris or Brussels emit a tenth of the carbon dioxide of an equivalent flight. Whilst it was proud of this result, Eurostar realised there was plenty more it could do to capitalise on this inherent advantage of rail travel.

So in 2007, Eurostar launched a major environmental initiative called “Tread Lightly”. This initiative has three core elements:

1. To cut CO2 emissions by 25% per passenger journey by 2012 (since raised to 35% after reaching the initial target by 2009)
2. To create a 10 point plan to reduce Eurostar’s overall impact on the environment
3. To make all Eurostar journeys carbon neutral at no extra cost to passengers

Tread Lightly is now a fundamental part of Eurostar’s business, and has helped the company become a shining beacon of environmental responsibility – something of growing importance to numerous consumers.

From Tread Lightly to Cut A Quarter

In 2010, Eurostar was ready to announce its latest environmental initiative – a new “Cut a Quarter” website where consumers could develop their own action plan for reducing their carbon footprint by 25%. At the same time, the company was keen to find a good platform for sharing its own environmental achievements and highlighting its sustainable credentials.

So when START UK announced its plans in 2010 for a special “Garden Party to Make a Difference” hosted by The Prince of Wales at Clarence House to highlight the importance of sustainability, the event was a natural choice for Eurostar.

The question was, how could Eurostar make its presence really stand out from over 100 corporate exhibitors at the event, all keen to showcase their environmental credentials?

The Brief

Communications consultancy Firelighter and brand experience specialist BEcause were appointed to mastermind the campaign, from campaign concept through to delivery. The objectives were as follows:

• Position Eurostar as THE leader in sustainable short-haul European travel amongst visitors to START UK’s “Garden Party to Make a Difference”
• Showcase Eurostar’s key destinations and fast journey times
• Help launch the new “Cutaquarter” website, designed to help people cut their own carbon footprint by 25%
• Drive consumers to consider Eurostar for future travel by highlighting the environmental benefits of rail travel

Strategy and Execution

In planning Eurostar’s presence at the START festival, the creative team knew it was paramount to ensure that the consumer experience was engaging and entertaining, not worthy and corporate. Success would come from participation, not preaching.

With this in mind, the team hit upon the imaginative concept of high-speed theatre. By staging a series of fast, entertaining sketches by trained actors, key messages about destinations, journey times and sustainability could be brought to life in fun, creative and highly memorable ways.

A white Eurostar-branded dome was chosen as the home of the High Speed Theatre. By splitting the internal space in half, BEcause created a 35-seat semi-circular theatre in one half, and an interactive exhibition in the other. The strapline “Exploring is Beautiful” was used in all branded materials, including moving coloured gobos projected onto the inside of the dome’s roof.

Outside the dome, Brand Ambassadors wearing “Start to Tread Lightly” T-shirts distributed free tickets to the High Speed Theatre. These were designed in the style of a Eurostar ticket and printed with the words “You’re about to go on an incredible journey”. These also contained an entry form for a daily prize draw to win a pair of Eurostar tickets, with entries to be posted in the dome.

Using Theatre to Convey Messages

Inside the theatre, actors staged performances every 15 minutes. Each high-speed sketch focused on one of four key different destinations each hour – Paris, Cologne, Avignon and Amsterdam. Times of performances were displayed on a departures board, and each sketch was timed to reflect the exact journey time to the destination. Thus the Amsterdam performance lasted 4 minutes 46 seconds, reflecting the 4 hours 46 minute journey time from London.

Each play was carefully scripted and directed to give quick, interesting insights into the city and subtle messages on sustainable travel, with lots of laughs thrown in. A video wall backdrop gave each performance plenty of local character. At the end of each performance, a Eurostar representative gave a quick overview of Tread Lightly and introduced the audience to the cutaquarter.com website, projected onto the video wall.

Continuing the journey via an interactive exhibition

For consumers’ added interest and enjoyment before and after the performances, half of the dome was devoted to an educational exhibition. The back of the theatre video wall acted as a giant canvas for a large interactive map of Europe, showing all Eurostar’s destinations and journey times. Around the outer walls of the dome, graphic informational panels and iMacs were set up, linking to different Eurostar destination and sustainability websites (including cutaquarter.com). These offered more insight into key destinations and rail travel’s sustainable advantage. Trained brand ambassadors were on hand to answer any questions and guide visitors around the experience. Any consumers wanting to book travel on the day were also offered a 25% discount.

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Results and Overview

“A Garden Party to Make a Difference” ran for 12 days from 8-19 September 2010 and attracted 30,000 visitors in total to three Royal Gardens – Clarence House, Lancaster House and Marlborough House. Almost 8,000 people visited Eurostar’s High Speed Theatre, (including Camilla – Duchess of Cornwall, Alan Titchmarsh, Lord Attenborough and Alistair McGowan).

In post-event research amongst visitors:

• 68% said they had learned something new and
• 91% said they were more likely to travel with Eurostar in the future
• on average, visitors rated the experience as 9 out of 10

Whilst sales was not a main objective of the campaign, over £6,000 worth of ticket sales were booked at the event.

Claire Hutchinson, Eurostar’s Head of UK Marketing said, “This was a brilliant experiential idea, delivered with great style and efficiency by a team of great people. It enabled us to bring our destinations to life in a truly imaginative and creative way. It captured the spirit of exploration and discovery through the eyes of different travellers and emphasised the speed with which we take our customers to these destinations. We’ve had fantastic feedback from many people who visited the event.”