Redefining loyalty with Club Avanti

The rail indus­try has lagged behind oth­er sec­tors in devel­op­ing loy­al­ty pro­grams that tru­ly res­onate with pas­sen­gers. Tra­di­tion­al meth­ods like 2‑for‑1 offers and third-par­ty part­ner­ships failed to inspire ongo­ing engage­ment and lacked the per­son­alised touch cus­tomers craved. There was a need for a pro­gram that not only retained cus­tomers but reward­ed them mean­ing­ful­ly for their choice to trav­el by train, par­tic­u­lar­ly over long distances.

Approach
We cre­at­ed ​“Club Avan­ti” — a loy­al­ty scheme designed to echo Avan­ti West Coast’s core brand val­ues and ethos: con­nect­ing peo­ple with places and oppor­tu­ni­ties. Our prin­ci­ples in design­ing the pro­gram were that it had to be free, sim­ple to under­stand, and ben­e­fi­cial to all cus­tomers, though offer­ing greater rewards for longer journeys.

We cre­at­ed a propo­si­tion that did­in’t focus on point­less points but on the moment that peo­ple actu­al­ly care about, the moment of redemp­tion. The propo­si­tion ​‘win­ning at trav­el’ cap­tures the feel good emo­tion of dif­fer­ent types of trav­ellers matched to rel­e­vant benefits.

Brand­ing

The design drew inspi­ra­tion from the Mas­ter­brand but ele­vat­ed it and cre­at­ed a club feel with the ​‘spark logo’ repeat­ing to demon­strate the idea of jour­ney­ing through the tiers.

It promised func­tion­al ben­e­fits such as dis­counts, spe­cial offers, and an enhanced trav­el expe­ri­ence, along­side emo­tion­al ben­e­fits of feel­ing val­ued and recog­nised. Tap­ping into the Mas­ter­brand frame­work, we craft­ed an iden­ti­ty that spoke of appre­ci­a­tion, inclu­siv­i­ty, and fun.“Club Avan­ti” was visu­al­ly aligned with Avanti’s main brand, fea­tur­ing a logo that sym­bol­ised con­nec­tion and move­ment. A dig­i­tal-first approach was tak­en, focus­ing on the Avan­ti app as the pri­ma­ry plat­form for engage­ment, sup­ple­ment­ed by email mar­ket­ing and sta­tion-based promotion.

We intro­duced tiered mem­ber­ship lev­els — Sil­ver, Gold, and Plat­inum — each offer­ing esca­lat­ing rewards. From dis­count­ed jour­neys to exclu­sive access to lounges, every ele­ment of the pro­gram was craft­ed to make the trav­eller feel part of a spe­cial and priv­i­leged group.

Results:

“Club Avan­ti” was an instant hit, with mem­bers enjoy­ing imme­di­ate ben­e­fits like a 10% dis­count on their first jour­ney and a com­pli­men­ta­ry hot drink. Dur­ing a nine-month tri­al, over 80,000 cus­tomers enrolled, val­i­dat­ing the program’s appeal. The pro­gram fos­tered a sense of com­mu­ni­ty and appre­ci­a­tion, lead­ing to increased cus­tomer reten­tion and a boost in direct bookings.