The new meaning of value

If you’ve felt the ground shift­ing under what ​“val­ue” means late­ly, you’re not imag­in­ing it. McKinsey’s lat­est State of the Con­sumer 2025 report cap­tures the moment per­fect­ly: 85% of peo­ple say the cost of liv­ing has changed how they shop, but they’re not sim­ply cut­ting back. They’re re-pri­ori­tis­ing. Trad­ing down in some places so they can splurge in others.

That might look con­tra­dic­to­ry on paper, but emo­tion­al­ly, it makes sense. Peo­ple aren’t just chas­ing sav­ings any­more, they’re chas­ing feel­ing. A sense of fair­ness, reward, and small joy that jus­ti­fies the spend. They’ll skip the every­day lat­te to afford a meal that feels spe­cial, or swap a big brand for a small­er one that feels more them.

Val­ue isn’t a price war; it’s an emo­tion war. The brands win­ning now aren’t those shout­ing ​“cheap­er!” but those that make peo­ple feel clever, cared for, and good about their choice. When val­ue feels good, it stops being a com­pro­mise and starts being a connection.

Turn­ing emp­ty seats into opportunity

Take the work we did with Avan­ti West Coast. Every year, 12 mil­lion coach trav­ellers choose the long road over the fast train, not because they want to, but because of price. Mean­while, Avanti’s trains were run­ning with emp­ty seats. We helped turn that ten­sion into oppor­tu­ni­ty: a new offer built on true val­ue. Fair­er fares that filled trains and cre­at­ed a real win-win: for cus­tomers, for Avanti’s reach, and for the brand’s promise of feel-good travel.

Our Approach

1. We saw the brief as more than cheap­er tick­ets. It was about grow­ing Avanti’s reach with­out dilut­ing what made the brand feel pre­mi­um. The goal was sim­ple: fill seats, grow audi­ences, and make val­ue feel good again.

2. Train fares are famous­ly con­fus­ing. We saw that frus­tra­tion as an open­ing, a chance to make tick­et buy­ing trans­par­ent, human and satisfying.

3. Work­ing with Avan­ti, we cre­at­ed Super­fare. The name that says exact­ly what it means: super trans­par­ent, super sim­ple, super fair. But it wasn’t just about sav­ing mon­ey. It car­ried Avanti’s sig­na­ture feel-good ener­gy, posi­tion­ing the brand as smart, fast and full of character.

4. Visu­al­ly, Super­fare bor­rowed Avanti’s DNA but added more light and life. It was Avan­ti at its most human: brighter colours, friend­ly tone, a relaxed confidence.

5. For launch, we zeroed in on stu­dents because they were bud­get-savvy, val­ues-dri­ven, and tired of fare con­fu­sion. Super­fare gave them clar­i­ty, fair­ness and a rea­son to feel good about choos­ing rail.

The Results

Launched in Jan­u­ary 2023, Super­fare quick­ly expand­ed from four to twen­ty-four routes by April, sup­port­ed by sea­son­al, mul­ti-chan­nel campaigns.

18 mil­lion impressions

40,000+ book­ings

£700k+ in new revenue

70% of cus­tomers were new to Avan­ti, and 50% were new to rail alto­geth­er. Sat­is­fac­tion soared, 88% said they’d book again, 85% rat­ed the expe­ri­ence high­ly, and the cam­paign won ​‘Deliv­er­ing for the Cus­tomer’ at the Spot­light Rail Awards 2024.

Oth­er oper­a­tors soon fol­lowed suit. It was proof that when you build val­ue around expe­ri­ence, not dis­count­ing, growth follows.

Super­fare didn’t just sell tick­ets. It turned fair­ness into a feel­ing, and feel­ing into performance.

Val­ue with­out com­pro­mise

The sto­ry of Super­fare isn’t just about trains, it’s about trust. When peo­ple feel seen, treat­ed fair­ly and giv­en gen­uine choice, they don’t just buy; they believe. Con­sumers today aren’t only seek­ing sav­ings, they’re seek­ing lift. A moment of fair­ness, a sense of reward, a rea­son to feel good about spend­ing. That’s the new def­i­n­i­tion of val­ue. The brands that win won’t be the cheap­est, they’ll be the clear­est, the fairest, the ones that make cus­tomers feel some­thing worth pay­ing for. Because when val­ue feels good, it doesn’t erode your brand. It becomes it.