Why do they keep fiddling with announcements? Phil had a case for being removed as he died years ago now but there is nothing wrong with Northern Celia, or the old on-board Northern announcers. They want to save money yet have this obsession with breaking what isn't broken. I don't understand this mentality.
It’s all about brand personality, marketing 101, the idea that you can give human personality traits to a brand or business, therefore making the brand seem both reliable and trust worthy from a psychological point of view, humanising the business.
Northern is essentially trying to shake off the bad PR of its predecessors (a very good move) whilst retaining both the tainted brand name of twenty or so years and company image of Arriva (baffles me that part).
It stems from the same marketing catalogue as ‘Proud to be Northern’ and ‘Do your thing’
What Northern wasn’t expecting was the sheer number of complaints in regards to mispronounced station names and the use of “this is the northern service t’” which was recent removed and then updated to “to”, hence the various edition updates
I must say I personally preferred the Geordie (safety) announcements when the CAF fleet were first introduced personally and would have preferred a full roll out of those, which were much more peppy and jovial in tone when compared to the current serious announcements