National Express
Converting to Coach
Gaining momentum for the UK’s No 1 coach company and creating a customer journey that will convert passengers to coach.
Idea
The client approached us to uplift their existing brand presence across Stansted Airport. National Express were looking for a comprehensive brand solution that would work throughout the duration of the customer experience journey within the airport and one that would challenge other transport providers. The client also had the view of evolving this brand identity in the marketplace landscape to be rolled out across other airports.
Insight
We broke the brief down into a digestible format to decipher key project drivers, objectives and deliverables that would result in a commercially successful execution. We needed to address what National Express wanted to say, how they needed to say it, and when, to create a seamless customer journey for passengers; we needed to tell a story.
The project started with a walk through of the airport, including both arrivals and departures, to evaluate the current execution and fully understand the environment customers would see along their travel journey. We documented this journey via an in-depth map, identifying primary, secondary, and tertiary graphic opportunities. From there we worked with an external research agency who took a deep dive into passenger decision drivers, missions, and perceptions, with
particular focus on their opinion of coach travel and National Express as a brand. The findings from this research piece were utilised by our team of designers acting a springboard to form the foundations of the project.
We presented three concept routes exploring contrasting variations of look and feel. Once the concept was chosen and refined, we built a simple, accessible, and direct retail toolkit based on key strategic themes including tone of voice and colour palette. The navigational comms were soft, friendly and approachable, balancing persuasive messaging and positive perceptions of coach travel and National Express. The colour palette consisted of National Express’ timeless branding while offering a fresh feel to garner engagement with passengers.
Realisation
With the customer journey at the heart of the design, we created a suite of clear and informative graphics that were installed throughout Stansted. We wanted to provide passengers with reasons why they should use National Express to travel into London as well as clearly showing them how to. The graphics were designed to be visually appealing and easy to understand in such a stimulating environment that is Stansted. We adopted bold colours, clear iconography, and simple typography to communicate important information in a concise and engaging way.
Testimonial
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