The longing for real life is strong. This is also the case in the business world which is looking to recover from the pandemic. However, travel behavior has changed dramatically due to restrictions and new corporate travel policies. That is why Deutsche Bahn (German Railway) has launched an integrated campaign to motivate the important target group of business travelers to go on business trips again.
Deserted offices. Lonely clients on the floors of office complexes and high-rise buildings. That’s probably how it looks everywhere in Germany. Thousands of managers are very lonely right now. They are sitting in empty meeting rooms, looking at abandoned office chairs. They endure endless online meetings and wonder when it will finally end. Jürgen Kornmann, CMO of Deutsche Bahn, is convinced: “With our new long-distance campaign, we are focusing on a currently very relevant insight to have ‘real meetings’ again, especially when it comes to important topics such as product launches or contract negotiations. In this context, we want to emphasize the advantages of traveling by rail in terms of productive and relaxed use of time, as well as the climate friendliness of rail for business travelers.”
Centerpiece of the campaign is this TV spot from Ogilvy Germany, directed by Cadmo Quintero via Hamburg-based production company Erste Liebe. Set to the song “All by Myself” by Eric Carmen, the film captures the current mood of the business world. Managers adjust chairs, stack coffee cups, roll canvases up and down, practice yoga, and play office games by themselves. The millionth video conference is running next to them. They look longingly out of the windows and wait expectantly for old and new and, above all, real business partners. All of them feeling very lonely right now.
The targeted message to businesses is simply to visit your clients before others do. And German Railway is the way to go–literally–for business travel.
