Advertising Amtrak

[Model Trains and Railfanning]

The only TV advertising I've seen Amtrak do is on Mariners games for the Amtrak Cascades. But I do agree with you. If they just advertized more, people would realize that this is one of the best ways to travel.

[inch53]

Haven't had anything to say on this until now, but when we got our bank statement yesterday and in it was a schedule for the trains in and out of Chicago. The first ad we've seen here, since the ones they ran on TV years ago. 

It's 40 mile to the nearest station [un-manned] and only goes to Chicago or Carbondale. Doesn't do us much good, but I'm still glad their doing something to get the word out.

Now if they had trains that ran from Indy and St. Louis and stopped here, that'd be  a little different.

inch

[lattasnip9]

Yes thats a good point.  It wasn't exactly smart of me to ask this question in the first place because I myself live in the twin cities and its not a very good market due to the fact that the only train that runs through here is the Empire Builder.  But I'm suprised that they have advertised here.  What station did you hear the ads on?

[CG9602]

I think that Amtrak may be afraid or reluctant to advertise in many markets because of the inconsistent levels of service. Advertising may create unrealistic expectations regarding Amtrak trains, and result in many more customers saying, "Never again," because Amtrak has so many challenges that they need to address regarding consistent levels of service before trying to advertise. The average passenger is woefully ignorant of how Amtrak does not own the track over which it must operate, or how this affects the conditions of their rail experience. People are accustomed to passengers taking priority over freight, and not the reverse. Many passengers have also been disappointed in the train crews attitudes and treatment of passengers, having embarked with the expectation of a Disney level of customer service satisfaction. Let's face it: Amtrak does not offer this.

Amtrak also has more pressing spending priorities, such as repairing the rolling stock and getting cars off of the "dead" lines at Bear, DE, and Beech Grove, IN, and returning them to revenue service. The Amfleet coaches are nearing 3 decades old. So are the first batch of Superliners. The day is coming when Amtrak will have to request replacements for these two fleets of cars, and that is going to require money. Amtrak might also get more punctual handling of their trains on privately owned track if Amtrak were to offer higher rates of compensation for the handling of their trains. That's another priority right there. Amtrak could advertise, but it gets so much bad press and bad word-of-mouth PR that advertising might boomerang on Amtrak. For all of these reasons, Amtrak does not advertise.

I recall hearing radio ads for Amtrak in the Twin Cities, though.

[f14aplusfl]

Airlines advertise and for the most part there always filled up without any problem, using "our trains are full" as an excuese for not advertising is pretty sad IMO. Amtrak should be advertising all the time regardless of ticket sales. If there trains are full they should be provided with more coaches

Well Amtrak also needs to have the money to buy and maintain cars. From what I understand at some of there shops, equipment is sitting there waiting for funding to be available to complete anything from FRA mandated inspections to basic maintance.

[Mr_Ash]

im from Chicago suburbs and only thing I have heard about Amtrak since the 90's is about that drug dealer getting arrested in Springfield a couple months back....

Airlines advertise and for the most part there always filled up without any problem, using "our trains are full" as an excuese for not advertising is pretty sad IMO. Amtrak should be advertising all the time regardless of ticket sales. If there trains are full they should be provided with more coaches

[MILW205]

I heard an Amtrak ad on a Milwaukee radio station last night touting the Hiawatha service as a way to avoid Chicago traffic.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Amtrak has recently begun radio ads in the Chicago area promoting the Hiawatha Service to Milwaukee.  This may be part of the campaign mentioned in the above posting.

More than a few years ago, I did see billboards along I-94 in southwestern Michigan promoting the service to Chicago.

[Anonymous]

This excerpt from the September issue of Amtrak Ink (the company newsletter) provides a rundown of their fall advertising campaign:

System-wide Campaign

This campaign includes television ad placement on theWeather Channel in the top 21 markets and print advertising in the major daily newspapers in select markets and in national and regional magazines, such as Budget Travel, National Geographic Traveler,Midwest Living and Sunset.

Out-of-home advertising is a major component of this campaign as well, with advertising  appearing nationally on CNN in various airports, billboard placements in the Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Denver and Orlando airports and large billboard placements along the major highways leading to these airports.Additionally, significant advertising is placed on various Internet travel sites such as Orbitz,Travelocity, Expedia and search engines such as Google,AOL and MSN.

"With the high cost of gasoline, increased traffic congestion and erratic airline service," said Director, National Advertising Darlene Abubakar, "there has never been a better time to broadly promote the benefits and advantages of train travel."

The system-wide campaign continues to use the updated Michael Schwab illustrations introduced in September 2003.Ads still promote select city pairings and special tactical pricing offers will be featured as they become available.

Amtrak Ink can be found at www.amtrak.com/ink

[BNSF_GP60M]

Amtrak California runs commericals every night here in California. Its simple. It shows either a man or a women (depending on the spot) next to a window. The announcer states somthing about driving, then the camera pulls back to reveal a family sitting in the lower area of a California car.

[f14aplusfl]

TV advertising is expensive. 

Around Boston they have ads promoting Acela and I imagine they have the same throughout the Northeast Corridor. I see adds for the Downeaster (sometimes) and rarely do I see ads for Amtrak outside of the Acela. Generally I find them in the paper, signs on the T, and that kind of low cost advertisement. Sometimes I see ads promoting it as an alternative to travel by bus on the NE corridor but really they don't highlight it. Sometimes on I-95 you'd see ads for the AutoTrain. If they could go north of Virginia that'd be nice cause most of the traffic is north of Virginia.

If I were Amtrak, I do a jetBlue style advertisement along the Northeast Corridor and for the Auto Train. For those of you who haven't seen them

Dear Driver or Dear <insert city name>,

Some simple statement about comfort, getting food/drinks, use your computer, etc....,

Sincerely,

Amtrak

They probably could do well with some of there other regional/corridor services like Detriot to Chicago, the Empire Corridor (if they ever sort that one out), etc...

[espeefoamer]

Amtrak used to advertise on TV,but it's been a long time since I've seen an Amtrak commercial.

[DMUinCT]

  On TV, watch the regular season games of the Boston Red Sox and in New York, the Yankees.

  At both Fenway and Yankee Stadium, Amtrak and Acela adds appear behind the batters during the 3rd or 4th innings.

[MILW205]

Amtrak runs ads promoting Acela in the northeast edition of the Wall Street Journal with some regularity.

[Dakguy201]

My understanding is that Amtrak is extremely short of the types of cars they need to run LD trains.  If this is correct, and the LD trains are running essentially at capacity, then advertising that service does very little good.  Logically, then, their ads should promote the various regional services as well ads pointing ouit to the public (and Washington) their place in the overall transportation network. 

[Anonymous]

Good advertising can be clean, comfortable trains that run on time; clean, attractive stations with attractive signage and friendly agents.  When you have these, you can get the best advertising of all - word of mouth - and it doesn't cost a dime.

[lattasnip9]

man that sounds exciting (sigh)

[dldance]

Ads can also be used as a lobbying method.  Some are blatently political.  But some are very skillfull in putting across both the lobbying message: "Amtrak is important and deserves to be funded" and the consumer message: "You should use Amtrak."

dd

 

[SFbrkmn]

For the last several yrs Amtrk has bought ads on CBS Radio/Westwood One broadcast  of Monday Night Football. Part of the package is the Amtrk player of the game and the Amtrk player of the yr which will be announced next Feb in Phoenix @ Super Bowl 42.

[Anonymous]

I've seen Amtrak ads in Parade magazine. Our paper stopped carrying Parade, though, several months ago, so I haven't seen what they're doing lately. I see ads in the California AAA magazine VIA now and then.

A couple years ago Amtrak had a great humorous radio campaign. But I haven't heard anything recently. The last TV ads I saw were in the 1990s, but TV is very expensive.

I think money is the biggest factor in how much advertising they do. Another consideration might be that Amtrak doesn't have much additional capacity. Bringing in more customers without cars to carry them may be an issue. Why advertise if the trains are already full?

[lattasnip9]

Why doesn't Amtrak advertise any?  Is it a financial thing or what?  Cause if more people knew about rail travel wouldn't more people be choosing it?  I may be the stupidest person to bring up this subject but I've never seen or heard Amtrak advertising anywhere.