Branding or Lunacy

Today I had to go to London for a day’s business. I drive through to York and then catch the train from there. The service from York to London is very good, taking about two hours with a train every 30 minutes. So leaving home at 6.30 I was in London at 10am, not a bad journey.

Now the service has been run by a number of different companies. In the noughties a company called GNER who went bust because they promised to pay the government more for running the service than they were collecting through the fares box ran it. Incidentally they had the best quality of service although I did not think so at the time. National Express, who is basically a coach company, succeeded them for two years. They completely overbid for the service and this time voluntarily handed the keys back to the government. This is a prime example of a private company taking on a contract with all upside and no downside. So the service then passed to a public company that ran the service relatively successfully for five years paying the taxpayer a considerable premium. But because we have a dogmatic political system they were forced to handover to yet another private company, Virgin Trains last week.

I relate the history to illustrate one important fact at each change of company all the branded items change, from the train logos, the signage at the stations, and the leaflets provided to customers. Now this is despite the service not fundamentally changing at all or having any competition. Do I care whether the signs at York stations read Virgin, East Coast, National Express or Thomas the Tank engine? No I do not, I want a seat on a clean train that runs to schedule.

This got me thinking as to how much all the brand changes cost, a considerable amount I would think, probably many hundreds of thousands of pounds, maybe even millions. Would it not be better to have a generic brand, let us say British Rail and any company could operate the train services. It is not as though the brand is for competitive purposes; this is not Coke versus Pepsi. There is very little completion for my travel between York and London, it is a private monopoly. So why don’t the companies put the money saved into improving the services or lowering the fares rather than creating an artificial brand fest.

My children will have been expecting this rant, it is over, and it is off my chest!!!