The train operator is investing £10m in a pan-European advertising and PR campaign. It is Eurostar's biggest-ever activity aimed at business people, to whom it feels it can now offer a tangibly superior service between London, Paris and Brussels.
Commerical director Nick Mercer, who was brought in to establish a single commercial structure in March, aims to achieve 80% market share on these routes by 2007.
The new rail link between the Channel Tunnel and North Kent, which is exclusively used by Eurostar trains, cuts 20 minutes off the journey time to Paris and Brussels, reducing the London-Paris journey time to two hours 35 minutes. The track will also ensure a smoother ride and improved punctuality.
Eurostar's £7m advertising campaign focuses on large 'dramatic' outdoor sites in the catchment areas for London, Paris and Brussels. Mercer claimed it will be the third-biggest outdoor campaign to have run in the UK.
Media in the UK is through Manning Gottlieb OMD.
The creative, by TBWA\London, stresses the simplicity and 'city centre to city centre' advantages of Eurostar over airlines. It uses airline-style imagery to encourage time-conscious business people to make a direct comparison between the services.
"Low-cost airlines are our only real competitors," said Mercer. "This is our most intensive campaign to date. The strategy is to communicate the improving experience for customers and to radically grow our market share."
In July Eurostar said it had carried three million passengers in the first six months of this year, down from 3.37 million in the same period last year, and well down on the peak of 2000.
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