Awful marketing taglines for public transport

[Bletchleyite]

No issue with route branding (though it does look rubbish if frequently used on the wrong route), but there should be a conventional number as well. Most bus companies manage this.

 

[Leedsbusman]

No issue with route branding (though it does look rubbish if frequently used on the wrong route), but there should be a conventional number as well. Most bus companies manage this.

Why?

 

[YX73OUB]

Out of interest, I had a look at Indigo. It is a 10 minute Mon-Fri service Nottingham to Long Eaton with a 15 minute evening service and an hourly (30 mins weekends) overnight service. Alternate journeys extend to Derby or Briar Gate for most of the day. This is an impressive level of service. I assume the lack of a route number and suffix variant has caused a big decline in customer use and reductions in service level from the old days. It must have been an impressive frequency back then.

It was every 6-7 mins pre tram.

There were other extensions to various suburbs that were removed following the introduction of skylink and various revisions.

 

[Leedsbusman]

It was every 6-7 mins pre tram.

There were other extensions to various suburbs that were removed following the introduction of skylink and various revisions.

Still a pretty impressive service given the tram overlaps the inner end. Does the tram have a route number?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Why?

Why should there be a number? Because buses have numbers, everybody knows that and everybody understands it and what they mean. Doing something different isn't helpful because then your bus works differently to everyone else's.

 

[Leedsbusman]

Why should there be a number? Because buses have numbers, everybody knows that and everybody understands it and what they mean. Doing something different isn't helpful because then your bus works differently to everyone else's.

I don't buy that sorry - many towns and cities in the past didn't have service numbers. Quite a lot of the Lancashire and Welsh municipals were like that and coped perfectly well, just using the destination as an identifier just like trains do. A name can provide just as clear an identifier as a number.

 

[SSmith2009]

Beaver Bus in Leicester use Catch The Beaver as their slogan on their buses, although it previously was the much funnier Ride The Beaver

 

[joieman]

Still a pretty impressive service given the tram overlaps the inner end. Does the tram have a route number?

No, the trams in Nottingham don't use route numbers for either route.

 

[Jimini]

Not necessarily an awful one, but for anyone who lived in or around Reading in the late '90s / early 2000s, the 2-Ten FM radio advert "from Reading to Heathrow, we'll get you there, Railair" will be forever etched in their memory!

 

[Bletchleyite]

No, the trams in Nottingham don't use route numbers for either route.

There's less need where there is only one way to a given destination. Metrolink is starting to get to the point where it needs them, though, certainly if a third (underground) city crossing ever happens.

Thread about that specifically: https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/should-tram-networks-be-numbered-like-buses.297253/

 

[Flange Squeal]

Not necessarily an awful one, but for anyone who lived in or around Reading in the late '90s / early 2000s, the 2-Ten FM radio advert "from Reading to Heathrow, we'll get you there, Railair" will be forever etched in their memory!

Not changed too much over the decades either, the coaches now bearing 'railair' with the tagline '& you're there'.

 

[Jimini]

Not changed too much over the decades either, the coaches now bearing 'railair' with the tagline '& you're there'.

V true!

I'd mention Reading Bedding but that would be off-topic, so I'll leave it there

 

[Nammer]

I do remember some bus advertising in the 80s on TVS here in the South. One was for Southdown that had a jingle that went "Southdown, we're travelling, with Southdown" and another that went "Alder Valley gives you so much more"

 

[lookapigeon]

I don't buy that sorry - many towns and cities in the past didn't have service numbers. Quite a lot of the Lancashire and Welsh municipals were like that and coped perfectly well, just using the destination as an identifier just like trains do. A name can provide just as clear an identifier as a number.

Numbers are universal in any language and even if English isn't your first language it's easier to direct someone to get bus 44 to Pontypandy.
Also from a passenger's point of view, I'd rather they spend that money meant for painting the bus pretty colours, and devising the brand on actually running it.

 

[Jimmi]

Arriva have had a few questionable ones over the years,

"Here to take you there" or not, as I once remarked when a service failed to operate once.

"Go on, get on!" Often displayed on screens when buses were not in service, so probably wouldn't go down well if you were to take that literally.

 

[capital12]

Arriva have had a few questionable ones over the years,

"Here to take you there" or not, as I once remarked when a service failed to operate once.

"Go on, get on!" Often displayed on screens when buses were not in service, so probably wouldn't go down well if you were to take that literally.

Hampshire Bus after de-reg had something similar… ‘We’re here to get you there’ which I think was better than the Arriva take on it though.

Another local one to Southampton was Brijan - theirs was ‘Miles of smiles with Brijan’ - unfortunately due to their rather ropey fleet most changed smiles to piles!

 

[Sealink]

I can't bear First Buses new slogan: Moving the everyday

 

[fgwrich]

I do remember some bus advertising in the 80s on TVS here in the South. One was for Southdown that had a jingle that went "Southdown, we're travelling, with Southdown" and another that went "Alder Valley gives you so much more"

Having worked in Aldershot, I’d rather not want to know what Alder Valley could give me so much more of

 

[mattb7tl]

Better question is there actually any good marketing taglines for public transport?

I was always taught in college that taglines cannot be invented and they have to be formed off of reputation otherwise it comes off as a joke or cringe. Volvo can give themselves the "for life" slogan because of their reputation. If a french manufacturer did the same it would be a joke. If most bus companies were to give themselves a slogan based off reputation they would be negative. So they should really avoid it all together...

 

[Llandudno]

Happy Al’s in the Wirral used to make me chuckle!

Not so much a slogan but a brand name.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Just realised how terrible and confused Lumo's "Travel Well, Beyond Expectations" which I think is less clever than they think it is. Even with the double meaning of "well beyond" and "well, beyond" it doesn't fit the budget operation they are.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Just realised how terrible and confused Lumo's "Travel Well, Beyond Expectations" which I think is less clever than they think it is. Even with the double meaning of "well beyond" and "well, beyond" it doesn't fit the budget operation they are.

Do they still use that? I'd agree it's awful, dreamt up by a suit in an office not an entrepreneur. They'd have been better off just using something like "cheaper and faster" as certainly before the Edinburgh superfasts they largely were compared to LNER.

 

[Royston Vasey]

Do they still use that? I'd agree it's awful, dreamt up by a suit in an office not an entrepreneur. They'd have been better off just using something like "cheaper and faster" as certainly before the Edinburgh superfasts they largely were compared to LNER.

They removed the vinyls from the trains, replacing them with "doesn't cost the earth" and now I think just "all electric". Though they did like it so much they enshrined it in their HQ fitout in Newcastle.

Lumo Trains Office - Janus Architecture

A new headquarters for ‘affordable’ rail service, Lumo, in Newcastle.

www.janusarchitecture.co.uk

 

[Bletchleyite]

They removed the vinyls from the trains, replacing them with "doesn't cost the earth" and now I think just "all electric". Though they did like it so much they enshrined it in their HQ fitout in Newcastle.

Lumo Trains Office - Janus Architecture

A new headquarters for ‘affordable’ rail service, Lumo, in Newcastle.

www.janusarchitecture.co.uk

With regard to the Toon specifically they also seem to like "Made in Newcastle" which at least brings a bit of local buy-in.

The electric stuff though, that won't have aged well when their filthy 20 odd year old DEMUs start belching their way from Stirling to Euston mostly under the wires. I wonder will they brand it completely differently?

 

[trentside]

Lincolnshire RoadCar bought a batch of 3 Volvo deckers for local services in Grimsby and branded them with the strap line ‘Local buses for local people’. Very League of Gentleman. They didn’t last long in Grimsby as the local people kept vandalising them.

FX55AZV

Lincolnshire Roadcar 919 : East Lancs Vyking bodied Volvo B7TL. This was the penultimate example of this combination - these were some of the newer buses acquired when Stagecoach took over. Surprisingly, given Stagecoach preferred Tridents and Alexander bodies, this one and a few others would...

flic.kr

 

[scosutsut]

Not related to the industry, but one of the worst ones I've worked with in a technology setting was an American company who declared they were "deliberately innovative." What, as opposed to accidentally?!?

Don't forget in telecoms too - when Orange changed to EE it officially meant "Everything Everywhere" but that lasted exactly 2 seconds when it was met with the contempt it deserved from long suffering customers that found it was more often "Something sometimes"

Again all can be attributed to a room filled with "creatives" who will all pat themselves on the back for an excellent job well done, who remain completely detached from reality throughout the entire process.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Don't forget in telecoms too - when Orange changed to EE it officially meant "Everything Everywhere" but that lasted exactly 2 seconds when it was met with the contempt it deserved from long suffering customers that found it was more often "Something sometimes"

The criticism of the name is entirely valid, but just to say that initially "Everything Everywhere" was more of an overarching name for the entity created by the merger of Orange and T-Mobile - the wordy name was never used as such as a brand for the mobile service as the two old brands continued for an interim period until "EE" was adopted as the 'successor' brand. That said, high-street retail stores were briefly branded "Everything Everywhere" but I think that lasted for a year and a half at the most before the "EE" brand took over.

Personally, I don't think "EE" is a particularly amazing brand name either, but the underlying service provided by the network is pretty good - which kinda shows that what really matters is the substance of what lies beneath the brand, rather than the brand name itself!

To bring this back to transport - I kinda think Morebus (formerly and indeed still formally Wilts & Dorset) is a bit of a daft name for a bus company, but they run a good operation and that's really what matters.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I don't buy that sorry - many towns and cities in the past didn't have service numbers. Quite a lot of the Lancashire and Welsh municipals were like that and coped perfectly well, just using the destination as an identifier just like trains do. A name can provide just as clear an identifier as a number.

Information systems are designed around routes having numbers, and it just works. Numbers are the convention, so you need to make a case for ditching them with an alternative and explain how it works "just as well" or better than a number. Otherwise you're just being different for the sake of being different.

Arriva have had a few questionable ones over the years,

"Here to take you there" or not, as I once remarked when a service failed to operate once.

"Go on, get on!" Often displayed on screens when buses were not in service, so probably wouldn't go down well if you were to take that literally.

"Here to get you there" was the slogan used by the West Yorkshire Public Transport Executive in the 1980s and 1990s.

One from back in the day: County Motors, a brand that was owned by Yorkshire Traction (and kept alive long after it stopped being officially in use by the very slow progress in repainting the buses) had a small fleet of MCW Metroriders used on Holmfirth local services under the brand "Summer Wine Minibus"... Legend has it that they rode like bathtubs on wheels!

 

[cool110]

hat said, high-street retail stores were briefly branded "Everything Everywhere" but I think that lasted for a year and a half at the most before the "EE" brand took over.

"Everything Everywhere" also appeared on the boxes of Orange and T-Mobile badged phones in that period.

 

[Leedsbusman]

Information systems are designed around routes having numbers, and it just works. Numbers are the convention, so you need to make a case for ditching them with an alternative and explain how it works "just as well" or better than a number. Otherwise you're just being different for the sake of being different.

No they are designed around characters. Letters work fine. At the end of the day the arbiter is the Traffic Commissioner who require a “route number or name”.