Our workNational Rail / nudging Gen Z towards more sustainable travel
Most people already know that taking the train is a sustainable way to travel. But knowing and doing are two different things. Changing behaviour and getting people out of their cars and into a less carbon-heavy mode of transport isn’t straightforward. But for this campaign, we helped National Rail encourage people to leave the cars at home and take hundreds of thousands of extra train journeys during 5 weeks of activity.
Choo choosing the right audience
To get the most out of a modest budget, we knew we needed to be hyper focussed with our audience. And after gathering lots of insights from phase 1 of this campaign in 2023, it was decided to target eco-minded Gen Z (18-26) light-medium rail users for this second phase. From the data, we could see this audience is already pre-dispositioned towards a green mindset, giving us a head-start when it comes to convincing a light rail user to take an extra trip by rail.
Just one more trip
The big part of this campaign was its small ask. Rather than say ‘always take the train instead of your car’, we simply asked people to take one extra trip by rail. And to an audience who we know is eco-conscious and already takes the train, we weren’t asking very much at all.
With an ROI of £3.49 for every £1 spent
The campaign encouraged 200,000 extra train journeys
It’s always about the positive impact
Kettles and phones
And while we all know what sustainably means, and that carbon emissions are bad – eco messaging can often be a little vague and abstract. So this campaign put it into simple tangible terms – so everyone could see the positive impact that one small change can make.
Choosing the train instead of a car could save the same carbon as boiling a kettle 455 times.
By switching from car to train, you could save enough carbon to power your phone for up to eight years.
An average train journey puts nearly five times less carbon emissions into the air than making this journey by car.
In all the right places
All the media was chosen to target our Gen Z audience – with OOH and in stations, but heavy on social, Snap and Spotify – the places we know they’ll be.
Gen Z feedback
With a great ROI and hundreds of thousands of extra rail trips attributed to the campaign, the campaign delivered commercially – but it also performed well attitudinally, delivering statistically significant positive responses in a YouGov survey.
