2024 Silver Data and Insight

Agency: Wavemaker UK, VCCP, Kinetic, DOOH.com and JCD Airport

Client: Transport for London

Entry Title: Bonjour, Hallo, Ciao, Hola, Namaste

Executive Summary

This is the story of how data helped TfL tell travellers arriving from all over the world about the ease and convenience of the new Elizabeth Line service from Heathrow Terminal 5.

Strategy

79 million passengers arrived at Heathrow airport in 2023, each with their own preferred and trusted ways of getting into central London. Throw a brand new, revolutionary Elizabeth Line into the mix and what do you get? The opportunity for those millions to use a modern, efficient and sustainable mode of transport, thereby reducing emissions and congestion at the airport and into the city.

How could TfL boost passenger numbers on this modern, efficient and sustainable mode of transport? The team set out to create an instantly positive impression that was clear and helpful, regardless of whether you just flew in from Paris or Pisa, Hamburg or Hyderabad. The big idea was to create a personalised, multilingual and multi-stage welcome for passengers, right from the moment they touched down.

Creativity

The campaign deployed 42 dynamic digital screens across the Arrivals Hall at Terminal 5. These screens were armed with two powerful data streams: live departure data from the National Rail API, showing real-time updates for Elizabeth Line journeys. Flight arrival data direct from Heathrow’s API also featured, telling the team which flights were using which baggage belts.

The combined data streams were used to create personalised, language-specific messages for each baggage carousel: 127,466 creative updates and more than four million messages in five different languages across two weeks. Personalisation on a pioneering scale.

Results

The visitor share that headed for the Elizabeth Line at terminal 5 vs. terminal 4 (where activity wasn’t live) was 18% higher. Passenger numbers on the Elizabeth Line from Heathrow into London shot up by 22% week-on-week during the campaign. This helped reduce emissions and congestion at the airport and in the city.

The work proved TfL could speak travellers’ languages. The campaign was rolled out across Terminals 2, 3, and 4 later that summer.