East Coast rebranding cost over £600k

[142094]

Article in the local rag, cost over £600,000 to rebrad trains and stations after NXEC left - but at least they had to pay some. Begs the question - how much is 'wasted' each time a franchise transfers to a different TOC, and how much of this would have been better spent elsewhere.

 

[Oswyntail]

Much better would be to have three standard liveries - Inter City, Regional and local - with a simple place holder for TOC vinyls. Stations should be branded as just that - Railway stations. No one needs to know the identity of the company providing the service - because, except in very few cases, they are not in competition with one another (and rightly so).

 

[DaveNewcastle]

er, yes, but I'd posted that story on another thread here just this morning!

Here it is again . . .
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£634,000 cost of rebranding East Coast Main Line trains
Mar 17 2010 by William Green, The Journal
http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east-news/todays-news/2010/03/17/634-000-cost-of-rebranding-east-coast-line-61634-26047472/

THE bill for “rebranding” trains on the East Coast Main Line after services were nationalised has run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The Department for Transport (DfT) has revealed that the cost for changing uniforms, logos on trains and even the website and stationary was £634,842.17 after previous private operator National Express hit financial trouble last year.

National Express paid £295,652.50 toward the bill under a contractual requirement to remove their branding from services – leaving new state-owned operator East Coast to pick up the rest of the tab.

And further rebranding has not been ruled out by the DfT in its response to a freedom of information request. It said any further changes were up to East Coast bosses.

Sir Alan Beith, Liberal Democrat MP for Berwick, said: “If the Government was doing what we wanted it to do and keep the East Coast line in the public sector for a reasonable time, then it might have been justified. But seeing they are trying to sell it as quickly as possible, it is money wasted that could have been spent on the railways, on services for passengers.”

But Tyne Bridge MP David Clelland, a member of the Commons transport committee, said: “I think that is buying the railway on the cheap, it is a bargain.”

The DfT revealed that £255,685 was spending on interiors and exteriors of trains, while uniforms cost £44,400.

More than £60,000 went on stationary, while just under £100,000 was spent on station signage and buildings such as offices and first class lounges. Some £30,000 was spending overhauling the route’s website.

In its response to the Freedom of Information request, the DfT said: “In the case of this transfer, the re-branding has been achieved as efficiently as possible to minimise the additional cost. In all respects, East Coast has taken a minimalistic approach to branding in recognition of the high potential cost involved and in appreciation of onward transfer to a successor operator within two years from now. An example of this minimalistic approach is where appropriate the ‘National Express’ lettering has been removed from ‘National Express East Coast’ wording leaving just ‘East Coast’.

“In addition, the design and the majority of the creative work supporting the East Coast brand has been developed in-house from existing resources from within the East Coast mobilisation team removing the need for excessive creative agency costs.”

A DfT spokesman said: “East Coast sought out the best deals available during the re-branding process to ensure value for money for taxpayers and – to keep costs even lower – not everything was re-branded. The East Coast brand was created to equip the company with the tools it needs to effectively promote and encourage more passengers to use its services.”

 

[142094]

Just saw that as well!

 

[EM2]

Much better would be to have three standard liveries - Inter City, Regional and local - with a simple place holder for TOC vinyls. Stations should be branded as just that - Railway stations. No one needs to know the identity of the company providing the service - because, except in very few cases, they are not in competition with one another (and rightly so).

So if you have a ticket which is only valid on one TOC, but more than one serve your station, how do you quickly and easily identify your train?
If you're at Leeds and have an EC ticket, and an EMT train is on the platform, you're in a hurry and it *looks* like the train you normally get, and you see it *does* say East... on it, but you can't quite see the rest....

 

[Oswyntail]

So if you have a ticket which is only valid on one TOC, but more than one serve your station, how do you quickly and easily identify your train?
If you're at Leeds and have an EC ticket, and an EMT train is on the platform, you're in a hurry and it *looks* like the train you normally get, and you see it *does* say East... on it, but you can't quite see the rest....

Clear information on stations, perhaps? Admittedly, Leeds is one of very few stations where two TOCs serve similar destinations (London!). But, in the good old days, it worked when there was just BR!

 

[A60K]

In Germany all Deutsche Bahn trains (I think) have a 'DB Bahn' logo on each door. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but...

 

[gordonthemoron]

In Germany all Deutsche Bahn trains (I think) have a 'DB Bahn' logo on each door. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but...

DB trains all have the same colour scheme though, red for local trains, white for long distance (barring night trains which have a mixture of colours)

 

[tbtc]

If we're turning this into another argument about liveries, then I'll just say that the system on London buses seems to work pretty well - you need to have 75% of the vehicle in red, but the rest can be made up of your own pattern (e.g. the First "willow leaf" or the Arrive "cow horns") - there should be a balance between individual identity and "one size fits all"

 

[LondonLarry]

So if you have a ticket which is only valid on one TOC, but more than one serve your station, how do you quickly and easily identify your train?
If you're at Leeds and have an EC ticket, and an EMT train is on the platform, you're in a hurry and it *looks* like the train you normally get, and you see it *does* say East... on it, but you can't quite see the rest....

You'd have to get rid of TOC specific tickets. You can't expect someone to recognise an East Coast train by a tiny label at the end of each carriage!
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

No one needs to know the identity of the company providing the service - because, except in very few cases, they are not in competition with one another (and rightly so).

No, but brand identity is very important to companies to help them stand out in a market - even if they are the only players. How many brands of cola could you recognise from a quick glance?

 

[theblackwatch]

Much better would be to have three standard liveries - Inter City, Regional and local - with a simple place holder for TOC vinyls. Stations should be branded as just that - Railway stations. No one needs to know the identity of the company providing the service - because, except in very few cases, they are not in competition with one another (and rightly so).

Another simple rebranding would be to just us a different stripe on the same basic colour - in the same way the ScotRail was a variation on InterCity colours.

 

[Failed Unit]

So if you have a ticket which is only valid on one TOC, but more than one serve your station, how do you quickly and easily identify your train?
If you're at Leeds and have an EC ticket, and an EMT train is on the platform, you're in a hurry and it *looks* like the train you normally get, and you see it *does* say East... on it, but you can't quite see the rest....

Hmm, that doesn't work however, lets say you were at Lincoln Central (or Sheffield) on the day EMT took over. The units had about 7 different liverys!

EMT, Central, Arriva Northern, North Western, Wessex, Northern Spirit, Advertising.

My point been that when units get cascaded they are often in another operators livery of a while. Scotrail has some in Wessex, NXEA still has some Centraled 156's, Look how long it took Northern to rebrand. At least if they were just regional railways paint for example it wouldn't take as long to change the stickers. But considering that is all they did with east coast that still cost a lot of money!

 

[Electrostar]

I think London Buses now operate a 100% red livery with bodyside logos. Older buses can still be seen with blue skirts, swooshes and borderlines but they're becoming rarer.

Deutsche Bahn also tag their services InterRegional, InterCity etc with destination boards displaying these as appropriate initials in colour coded boxes.

 

[starrymarkb]

Or longer franchises, meaning the trains keep one livery for an extended period of time rather then the current 6-7 years and that's your lot

 

[shinkansen1966]

Much better would be to have three standard liveries - Inter City, Regional and local - with a simple place holder for TOC vinyls. Stations should be branded as just that - Railway stations. No one needs to know the identity of the company providing the service - because, except in very few cases, they are not in competition with one another (and rightly so).

Hear, hear ! This is exactly what I think. Over to the DfT to get on with implementing this...