2017 Bronze Travel and leisure

MEC UK

Client: c2c

Econometric lead planning

Campaign overview

As part of c2c's new franchise agreement with the Department of Transport, they committed to increase marketing spend at a 6:1 ROI target.

The brief was to identify scalable opportunities and have measurement in place to ensure they were delivering.

Strategy

One of c2c's main challenges was that it is a 'turn up and go' railway, meaning very little data is available on purchasers of leisure tickets and the factors driving them to make a journey.

c2c needed to understand whether the activity had been effective and to account for the diverse reasons for travel that varied along the route.

MEC grouped each of c2c's 28 stations into one of six clusters based on the population around the station, together with potential revenue upside, proximity to competitors, the number of trains serving them and existing ticket buying behaviour. These models allowed c2c to highlight the differences in channel performance along the route.

Using the outputs of the models, the team would then build a series of forecasting tools that would allow them to define the optimal level of investment, and phasing for each channel within each cluster.

Creativity

Building confidence in the evaluation framework across the c2c business allowed the team to better contextualise testing.

MEC UK developed several tests including scaling existing channels, such as OOH by adding in new test formats, wholesale shifting of their digital deployment towards mobile, and even testing non-traditional performance channels including social influencers.

Each test was analysed through the modelling and refined to maximise ROI.

Creative development in ads was streamlined, and one shared concept was used over multiple campaigns.

Meanwhile, the models suggested a temporary change to the weekend timetable to serve Westfield shopping centre. c2c went ahead and the experiment changed travelling behaviour in Southend leading to more sales; the altered timetable became a permanent fixture.

Results

For Awards Judges’ eyes only

Team

Dominic Charles (Head of Performance Planning) MEC UK - Aidan Jackson-Kendall (Communications Planning Director) MEC UK - Louisa Power (Account Director, Regional Media) MEC UK - Steve Knights (Head of Marketing) c2c - Daisy Gadd (Marketing Manager) c2c

Contributors

Universal McCann Creative agency