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An easy way to reach the Continent, the only thing that had been letting the Eurostar service down was the slow rail track on the UK-side of the channel. Last September though, this changed for the better as Eurostar finally got the high-speed link it had been pushing for since its launch a decade ago. The new line runs between Southfleet, just outside London, to Ashford, and enables trains to run at 186mph, cutting 20 minutes off the journey time each way.

This makes taking Eurostar, rather than the plane, a far more attractive prospect for the business traveller in particular, who may need to get to mainland Europe and back in a day. With train times now seriously able to compete with flight times, why go through the hassle and expense of getting to the airport when you can take the train from the centre of London to the centre of Paris or Brussels instead?

Breaking air travel's hold

This was the message Eurostar wanted to get across to business travellers to encourage them to book train, not air tickets. But for a hard core of business travellers, the air is king, and it was this group that the company wanted to convert, along with informing existing customers of the change. "There are advantages for any traveller but more specifically for business users," says Ricky Sharma, relationship marketing manager at Eurostar. "Travelling to Brussels or Paris gives you 40 minutes back on your day, making it more productive to travel with Eurostar."

This was very big news, so Eurostar required something a suitably impressive campaign. "This reduction in journey time was the biggest news since Eurostar's launch, so we wanted to do something innovative," says Sharma.

Bearing in mind that the airlines were the main competition, the idea of 'Fly Eurostar - It's only Eurostar that truly flies' was born as a proposition to be carried across all media, both above and below-the-line.

The campaign was split into two phases; the first to build awareness among the target audience of business travellers and get them to register their interest, and the second to convert them into paying customers.

Proximity London was charged with coming up with the creative concept for the campaign and Eurostar's agency translated the ATL tagline 'Fly Eurostar' into the BTL 'Test Pilots Wanted'. The idea was to go to places where business travellers would be, and promote the campaign by handing out flyers in the shape of the Eurostar train engine with this message.

Activity began on 29 September last year, with Eurostar launching a full-scale attack with guerrilla activity and field marketing supported by a viral campaign.

"We sent staff to Heathrow armed with flyers, frisbees, banners, t-shirts and chauffeur boards. They were legitimately waiting for someone on a flight from Brussels, but they created quite a stir," says Sharma. "Similarly, we had an event marketing team distributing in business hubs such as Canary Wharf, and at mainline rail stations in London, including Waterloo, all dressed up as pilots and air stewardesses."

Gathering data online

The aim of the leaflets was to drive recipients online to a microsite, incentivising them to give information including their email addresses, with a prize draw to win first-class Eurostar tickets to Paris or Brussels. There was also a game on the site that players were encouraged to forward on.

Eurostar had good reasons for wanting to raise awareness in this way, rather than through buying lists and mailing people, as Melissa Littler, group account director at Proximity London explains: "Identifying business travellers was our biggest challenge - it's a constantly shifting market, therefore we wanted people to handraise so we could get to know them and avoid the wastage of blanket targeting."

Some mail went out in this phase, but only to Eurostar's 35,000-strong loyalty club members to ensure they weren't left out of the promotion. Press ads and outdoor media also performed an important role in building awareness.

"Ads went into publications such as Metro, Evening Standard, The Spectator and Private Eye - we were trying to target business travellers in their own environment," says Sharma. "We also had ads on bus sides, the London Underground lines to Heathrow and on the A4 up to the airport, we had a super-site saying 'If you're going to Paris you're going the wrong way'."

Converting interest to action

Phase one lasted until 20 October, when phase two kicked in. While building awareness among business travellers of Eurostar's position as a major contender against the airlines was still important, phase two had different objectives. "It had to continue the message of a reduction in journey time, but also convert people to action," says Sharma. "We came up with, 'Fly Eurostar for free: buy one business-class ticket, get two leisure tickets free'."

Giving the passenger something for themselves was an important part of the campaign. "It was an incentive," says Littler. "If you give a price cut, the company benefits, not the individual."

The offer was promoted above the line using outdoor and press, and below the line using a host of activities. Following on from the field marketing activity in phase one, Eurostar again used a team to hand out leaflets advertising the ticket promotion, but in a break from the norm, it used Eurostar-liveried taxis to create even more presence.

Commandeering 20 taxis for a day, Eurostar offered Londoners free journeys within the city centre, accompanied by a Eurostar 'air hostess', who talked to them about the campaign and collected business cards. This was supported by ads in Metro that explained the stunt by telling readers Eurostar was encouraging fare dodging for a day.

"The feedback from the hostesses was that a lot of people knew about the campaign, so it was satisfying to know the message was getting through from phase one," says Littler.

While this was going on, teams again hit Waterloo, Canary Wharf and locations around the City, handing out flyers and frisbees, all promoting 'Fly Eurostar Free'. "In the City, we went to specific businesses, not just business travel agents," says Sharma. "We also promoted 'Fly Eurostar for Free' on coffee cups where companies have their own in-house coffee house, such as Morgan Stanley."

But this wasn't all: phase one had collected more than 10,000 opt-in email addresses and these were all sent details of this latest promotion. And again, Eurostar's existing loyal customer base wasn't forgotten; they received a letter communicating the 'Fly Eurostar Free' promotion. Material again drove recipients to a microsite, this time designed to support the fulfilment of this particular promotion. Here visitors could find out more about the offer, book tickets and register for their free leisure tickets. Again, they could play the viral game with the ten highest scorers winning a pair of first-class tickets.

As a result of phase two, the microsite achieved almost 90,000 visits over the campaign period. Overall, the activity achieved an ROI of 2.5:1, but the proof is in the pudding: in the fourth quarter of 2003, following the opening of the high-speed link, Eurostar saw a 15 per cent increase in passenger numbers and a 12 per cent rise in revenues. In the first quarter of 2004, passenger numbers went up by 19 per cent.

Strategies for the future

Sharma couldn't be more pleased: "It was the first time we'd really targeted business travellers below the line. It's now one of our strongest priorities."

He attributes the campaign's success to the offer. "We were doing something innovative that delivered real benefits to the customers, so an innovative campaign brought it to life."

Sharma was also especially delighted with how the email marketing went. "We'd done no email marketing before and its strength has led into whole new email programme," he says.

The campaign has also shown Eurostar how well received it is as a brand. "The feedback showed how warm people were to Eurostar," says Littler. "People were actually coming up to us."

It just goes to show - an innovative campaign and an innovative brand brings results, but also wins fans.

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