East Midlands Trains
All aboard
East Midlands Trains operated rail services between London, the East Midlands and beyond, with key stations including London St Pancras International, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Norwich, Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool.
m360 worked with East Midlands Trains (EMT) for the full 10 years of their franchise and now work in equal capacity for the newly formed East Midlands Railway, owned by Abellio.
- Brand identity
- Environments
- Digital
- Events
- Print design
- Outdoor media
- Promotions
- Wayfinding
In the moment
For marketing and communication materials, we were commissioned to capture EMT through photography. Subjects included customers, pets, staff, stations, landscapes, on-board menu items and more.
We appointed award-winning photographer Garrod Kirkwood for his sublime, disarming and naturalistic visual style. We worked with Garrod to coordinate the shoots across several days, handling model releases and location scouting.
The result was a suite of warm, honest and vibrant images that perfectly captured EMT’s brand personality.
Staying on track
A brand refresh in 2016 presented the opportunity for us to produce new brand guidelines. The resulting document was a comprehensive reference guide for all above-and below-the-line marketing, across both printed and digital formats.
Speaking to a broad audience
To maintain a cohesive personality, it’s essential that the brand’s voice is consistent. With this in mind, EMT needed a voice that was immutably theirs, while embracing three subtle adaptations for casual, informative and serious communications.
We developed three tones – Hey, Hi and Hello – ensuring an ideal voice for any scenario, whether it be a playful promotional message or an urgent service update.
Drawn together
As well as photography, EMT required a range of illustrations and icons. We developed a house style and a series of rules, making brand-compliant graphics easy for any designer to produce.
m360’s marketing support, throughout the life of the franchise, has continually improved our engagement score. Their experience is invaluable to our business.
Head of Commercial, East Midlands Trains
Inside knowledge
EMT not only understood the value of effective communication with their customers, but with their own people too.
We developed an effective Internal Comms style using a secondary colour palette and illustrative approach for use across all internal touchpoints, ensuring staff felt engaged, valued, empowered and inspired to be a part of East Midlands Trains.
