Going Loco with Southern Railways

This just makes me smile.

When the "more bums on seats" pitch brief came into the agency, we were looking to find a different way of approaching this creatively. We didn't want to do a category job for all trains it had to be Southern specific, we also didn't want to do the job of the South Coast tourist board and simply talk about the great destinations that Southern trains go to.

The insight for the brief was sparked off after reading Alain De Boton's The Art of Travel - we wanted to try and work out WHY people feel the need to travel. It's a great read BTW.

Southern trips are all quiet short-haul, in essence great day trips. I'm not sure about you, but often my Saturdays are fairly routine - I can predict with worrying certainty that I will go to the local farmers market, drop off clothes at the dry cleaners, go to the gym, phone my folks and generally potter locally. We briefed creative teams to BREAK THE APATHY OF SATURDAY.

Which was the springboard for Loco Toledo.  Loco is a wrestler from a small town in

Mexico

, where there are very few trains, and having recently arrived in

England

, is overjoyed to find that there are hundreds of trains going everywhere.

We are also developing the character through social spaces online, such as Facebook ,  with the hope of a wider roll-out next year. If you travel on Southern you may well see Loco around on your travels.

And don't forget to check out the Southern website for some brilliant online only ticket offers and thought starters for easy places to explore.

Comments

[twitter.com/ifeeloldwhen]

Loved this. Great approach to strategic thinking -- having just traveled by train from Chicago to California, I'm all about the underlying sense of adventure and experience that is at the heart of travel, day trips or otherwise. And what a fun creative result. Next time I make it over to England I'll add this to the itinerary!

[Toby]

Look at all those free seats! Surely this can't be the Southern I travel to work on!?

Nice campaign though. Just hope they have enough seats to cope with the inevitable influx of happy travellers.

[twitter.com/robwatts]

Gr8 stuff - and a tip for a book to read too :D Luckily for me I don't live in the region, so will be spared the dulcet tones and cheesy grin of Senor Toledo - Or maybe we'll see him on Great Eastern, capital connect etc. Who actually owns the character? You guys or the client?

[Daniel Kane]

I reacted with with jaw-dropping disbelief on seeing your latest marketing
scheme based around the fictional figure of one 'Loco Toledo'. Clearly your
advertising 'team' hasn't quite dragged itself out of the Pleistocene era
to join our current civilization, so let me take the liberty of offering
some advice. Basing a campaign around a fictional Mexican figure who is a
fat, lazy wrestler from a small town in 'Mejico' (what's up with that 'j',
anyway?) is stunningly offensive. Add to that a moronic 'back story'
complete with a 'happy song', a mustache that grows down to the ground, and
so forth, and one wonders as to whether all Southern Railway is composed
primarily of beer-swilling BNP-voting imbeciles. I mean, seriously, why on
earth do you think such a campaign is funny? Would you laugh if you were
traveling in Mexico and saw a poster of a bloated, pasty, snaggle-toothed
English man in a vomit-encrusted t-shirt extolling the virtues of the
Mexican public transportation system? Think about it. Then please, for all
our sakes, get rid of Loco Toledo, your 'lovable Mexican friend'.

By the way, given Southern Rail's dismal track record on running trains, it
is ironic to say the least to find you using a cultural stereotype
lamenting that, in Mexico, 'the train it hardly ever comes'. You might want
to improve your own record before putting down public transport in Mexico
which is generally excellent. I should know, as I grew up in Mexico and have visited many times since moving away.

Sincerely,

Dr. Daniel Kane
Department of English and American Studies
University of Sussex BN3 3DA

[Amelia]

Hi David - I am sorry if this campaign caused offence. In the same way that a little furry Russian meerkat was not meant to be an incitement of the Russian business scene, nor was Loco Toledo meant to be a satire of the Mexican rail network.

It was meant in a spirit of fun with the objective of increasing off-peak rail travel.

Early indications are that travel targets are being hit, which is a good thing.

Thank you for taking the time out of academia to leave a comment on this blog. Really do appreciate it. The reason that I post is to share campaigns and ideas that I find interesting and get feedback.

Look forward to seeing you on the blog again soon

[John Challoner]

I have written to Southern Rail to complain about the campaign. I have four guests from Mexico staying with me over Christmas and find it incredibly embarrassing. If you think that this is unreasonable then consider whether you would be happy for Southern Rail to use a French stereotype named "Fou" instead? Needless to say our trips to London will be by bus.

[amelia]

John - again apologies if the campaign offended you. As I emailed to Daniel the campaign was designed in a spirit of humour not malice and was extensively tested before going live.

(and Francois my French husband I think would be fine with a character called Fou)