Trains arrive too late and are overfilled, commuters are annoyed, the mood is sour – is the Deutsche Bahn as bad as they say?

To prove that trains can also be places of fascination and inspiration, we made sure that even the people who use the DB Regio every day get a chance of experiencing their train from an entirely new perspective.

With “Matuschke's Favourites Rock Train”, we managed to top up the "emotional creditworthiness" of DB Regio Bayern, the largest Bavarian train operator, by turning regular commuter trains into the hottest live music and party locations anywhere in Bavaria for five nights.

The idea delighted Bayern 3, the radio station with the largest reach in Bavaria, and its star presenter Matthias "Matuschke" Matuschik so much that he turned the concept into a multimedia live event of several days as our exclusive cooperation partner.

On five nights, we invited 10 of the hottest newcomer bands from all over Europe to perform their hits live in the DB Regio trains. The direct contact between bands and audience and the intimate atmosphere in the narrow train resulted in an intense event that lured all present out of their seats. Each of the five events was presented by Bayern 3 star Matthias Matuschik in person and incorporated into the main programme of Bayern 3 in the form of regular live broadcasts.

We had a raffle for the tickets, which were in high demand, exclusively via Bayern 3, to stir up listener interest even further.

The most important prerequisite for implementation was to gain the cooperation of a top media partner.

Once the cooperation agreement had been signed, the technical requirements for playing in the regular, non-converted trains, ticketing, participant handling and the entire communication plans were developed in just under two months.

The communication roll-out took place almost two weeks before the campaign. Supporting communication lasted a little over a week beyond the actual campaign phase.

The communication reached its peak on the five campaign nights: The performances were broadcast everywhere in Bavaria in the form of periodic live broadcasts and documented in the social web by live posts. Excerpts were available via streaming on the station's website and in the social web.

The greatest hits of the 10 participating bands were published on a dedicated CD called "Matuschkes Lieblinge". The album hit the German sampler charts at place 5 straight away.

By the mere editorial media partnership with Bayern 3 we achieved 144 radio contributions in the programme of Bayern 3 with an average daily reach of 2.71 million listeners in Bavaria for the project without any additional media expenses!

Additionally, the fans were able to learn about the campaign on the station's website (Bayern 3 does not publish precise usage figures).

Another 550,000 people in the target area were reached via the social media channels and reports in local and regional print media.

The reports on the campaign and the resonance in the social web were without exception positive.