The Campaign

V/Line is Australia’s major regional train operator. Our task was to increase passenger numbers in off-peak times by getting city dwellers to visit their family and friends who live in the country. This is not an easy job. We needed to push a hot button powerful enough to drag people out of shopping malls and onto a train to visit people hundreds of kilometres away. Our strategy was to harness the most powerful force known to man – a mother’s guilt. Our solution: The Guilt Trip. A pre-paid ticket that leveraged guilt, to help country people bring their loved ones home.

Success of the Campaign

The first month of the Guilt Trip campaign saw an increase in overall V/Line Sales month-on-month of 10%. This equated to a 400% ROI for the campaign. To appreciate the significance of this achievement, one needs to understand that for the 150 year old regional train service, this is the largest month-on-month increase in a single month’s patronage since the end of World War 2. V/line; bringing family and friends together, one Guilt Trip at a time.

Describe how the campaign/entry was launched and executed across each channel in the order of implementation.

The campaign launched simultaneously with the Guilt Trips website, advertising in press, radio and outdoor, as well as a PR and Social Media strategy. All of these drove users to the microsite where they could create a customized Guilt Trip message and purchase a ticket to bring their loved ones home.