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Winner spotlight
Rail Business Awards 2011 Preview
Two freight awards go to DB Schenker
DB Schenker Rail UK came out top in the
freight stakes at the 2011 Rail Business
Awards.
The company won the Rail Freight
Excellence Award, while one of its engineers,
Derek Clark, was named Rail Freight
Engineer of the Future.
DB Schenker’s efforts to utilise High
Speed One, the UK’s only rail route built
to accommodate European-sized wagons,
helped the company to win the Rail Freight
For the first time two companies won the
Marketing Campaign of the Year prize
– London Midland and ScotRail. And for
London Midland, it was the third year in a row
that the operator had won the award.
London Midland was recognised for its
high-impact launch campaign when off-peak
services between Birmingham to London
services trebled.
Judge Roy Campbell, marketing
programme manager of IBM, says: ‘London
Midland fulfilled all the criteria, including
demonstrating some capacity for self-review,
to put together a very strong entry.’
Head of marketing David Whitley reveals
that London Midland has stumbled on a
winning formula. ‘Our recipe for success
is really simple – making sure you have a
product worth shouting about, then shouting
about it all in the right places with messages
that customers can relate to. We’ve learnt
that you really have to think like a passenger
to get it right, so we’ve done a lot of listening
to customers, through traditional research
and things like Twitter.
‘We make sure we don’t have a very low
fare that nobody can get. So our campaign
Excellence award. The judges commented:
‘In introducing European-sized rail freight
services to the UK, DB Schenker has had
to overcome significant technical and
operational barriers. Their success in doing
so represents a landmark for UK rail freight
and a great opportunity.’
In order to get approval to use the line,
the company had to modify five of its
Class 92 locomotives, mainly to install incab
signalling capabilities. This cost DB
Schenker several million pounds.
Alain Thauvette, chief executive of DB
Schenker Rail UK, said: ‘Opening High
Speed One to rail freight and introducing
the first service on that corridor from
mainland Europe was a significant prize in
itself. Winning the Railfreight Excellence
award confirms that the approach we took
was the right one for our customers and the
rail freight industry.’
Derek Clark was recognised for his
delivery of pioneering locomotive fuel
this time around was Every 20 Minutes for
Less Than £20. Those £20 tickets were
available for at least 50 per cent of our trains
during the week and all weekend.’
Whitley praised his colleagues for their
hard work, too. ‘I’ve got a great team around
me, there’s no getting away from that. You
can’t win three times just by luck.’
ScotRail’s win was for its A Better Way
To Go campaign, which has helped achieve
record passenger numbers since its launch
in June 2011. Judges were impressed by
ScotRail’s use of radio, television, press and
online media to engage with people on the
benefits of rail travel.
Marketing manager Graeme Macfarlan
says: ‘It became clear that the train was the
way to travel in 2011. More of us are thinking
more about petrol costs and household
budgets are pretty tight.
‘We saw that as an opportunity to
showcase rail, but not in a traditional way by
taking the fares-based route – that’s a bit
old hat. We created a campaign that was
aligned to the various customer segments
and tried to show them real value, but in a
non-financial sense. So the Kids Go Free
saving initiatives. The judges liked his
professionalism towards researching
engineering practices outside the rail
industry to improve the fuel utilisation of
locomotives, helping to reduce costs and
protect the environment.
As part of his prize, Clark will also receive
a detailed training programme from award
sponsor Electro Motive, designed to develop
his career. This includes two weeks’ training
at its facility in La Grange, Chicago.
Thauvette continued: ‘I am delighted that
Derek Clark has been recognised for his
outstanding commitment to engineering
development and finding new solutions. For
his service to customers alone, he deserves
his title of Rail Freight Engineer of the
Future.’
DB Schenker was also Highly
Commended in the Internal
Communications Excellence category for its
employee safety improvement programme,
Switch on to Safety.
Judges pick two marketing winners
Kids Go Free
campaign poster
execution, which was a family-oriented piece,
was about being able to reward your kids and
treat them, so that’s an emotional value, not a
financial value. Another example would be for
a young woman who’s travelling – she’s got
the ability to sit and relax and to text before
she meets her friends.
‘Leisure, for us, is a massive market.’
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