"The Age of the Train" was a

television advertising A television advertisement (also called a television commercial, TV commercial, commercial, spot, television spot, TV spot, advert, television advert, TV advert, television ad, TV ad or simply an ad) is a span of television programming produce ...

campaign in the United Kingdom created by British Rail in the late 1970s to promote its

InterCity InterCity (commonly abbreviated ''IC'' on timetables and tickets) is the classification applied to certain long-distance passenger train services in Europe. Such trains (in contrast to regional, local, or commuter trains) generally call at m ...

rail travel service. The adverts were presented by DJ and BBC presenter Jimmy Savile and featured the then-new

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high-speed train.

Background

Although a

state-owned corporation A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...

at the time, British Rail was under pressure to operate on a more commercial basis. In an attempt to revive its loss-making business, BR chairman Sir Peter Parker commissioned a series of commercials from Peter Marsh of the

advertising agency An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generally ...

Allen, Brady and Marsh (ABM). The agency reportedly won the pitch to BR by keeping their visiting executives waiting for a long time in a dirty room, surrounded by overflowing ashtrays and coffee-stained furniture; after the executives' patience came to an end and they were about to leave in disgust, Marsh entered the room to greet them, explaining that their treatment had been a

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to illustrate the

customer experience Customer experience (CX) is a totality of cognitive, affective, sensory, and behavioral consumer responses during all stages of the consumption process including pre-purchase, consumption, and post-purchase stages. Pine and Gilmore described th ...

of BR, and that his agency would be able to put it right. The campaign helped to challenge the image of British Rail from a stale and lifeless nationalised industry into a vibrant commercial tool ready for the Thatcherite 'enterprise culture' of the 1980s. The campaign appealed to this growing Conservatism by promoting images of British Rail's sound financial competence, comparatively cheap operation compared to European railways, and an attempt to demonstrate how railway travel helped to reinforce security in the average family. Savile was selected to front the advertising campaign because, at the time, he was perceived as being both a popular and family-friendly television personality. The slogan, "This is the Age of the Train", is credited to

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of ABM. The advertisements continued to be produced until 1984, when they were replaced with a new campaign based on the slogan, "We're getting there". In 2012, during the

Jimmy Savile sexual abuse scandal It emerged in late 2012 that Jimmy Savile, an English media personality who had died the previous year, sexually abused hundreds of people throughout his life, most of them children but some as old as 75, and most of them female. He had been w ...

, a former BR lawyer alleged that the decision to drop Savile from the adverts had been made due to suspicions he was a necrophiliac.

References

Further information

* *Smith, Lewis Charles. "Marketing modernity: Business and family in British Rail’s “Age of the Train” campaign, 1979–84." ''The Journal of Transport History'' 40.3 (2019): 363-394.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Age of the Train, The British Rail Age of the Train Jimmy Savile British advertising slogans 1980 neologisms 1980 in British television 1980 in rail transport