Dutch Railways NS heavily invests in sustainability. But travelers are unaware. How can NS highlight its efforts in a way that contributes to a positive customer experience?

INSIGHT

Keeping people’s frets about late and overcrowded trains in mind, NS needed action, not words!

The NS Lost & Found Project came into being.

The bottom line of the project was a makeshift shop at Amsterdam Central station themed on lost and found items, a place where travellers could buy unique products that were made from these items. We teamed up with 150 students of the Artemis Styling Academy, who then worked in the studio area of the shop, while the most unusual of the lost objects, together with the stories behind them, were put on show in a display area.

To make travellers even more aware of NS’ sustainability efforts we hung clear infographics in strategic spots throughout the shop.

The NS Lost&Found Project was an unqualified success. All the products were sold out within three days, and the proceeds went to the Nature & Environment Foundation.

This project gave NS the opportunity to show both the press and its passengers that it takes sustainability very seriously.

It required an investment of €85,000 but generated a PR-value of €2.5 million, thus easily surpassing our objectives.

Come up with a PR activation focused on sustainability and NS’ social involvement that improves its customers’ experience.

These customers include commuters, day-trippers, tourists, young and old, ‘country folk’ and ‘city slickers’.

During NS’ briefing we realised that to reach as many passengers as possible, we’d need the national media on our side. NS warned us that it wouldn’t be easy selling the press a message about sustainability and social involvement because they were perceived as boring, dull and corporate. The press became an additional target group.

NS gave us the space and means to pull out all the stops.

The NS Lost and Found Project immediately fired people’s imagination. The press, for a change, was justifiably pleased to tell a nice, positive human-interest story about NS.

By means of this project NS informed its passengers about its sustainability projects in an accessible manner. It also demonstrated its social involvement by working together with students and donating the proceeds to a good cause.

The unique and endearing realisation of the project helped to repair the relationship between NS and the press, and contributed towards a sustainable image and positive customer experience. It even impressed people who, by nature, aren’t particularly interested in sustainability.

Reach

8,000 visitors in the shop in just three days.

PR reach

Print: 2,888,216 people

NOS Journaal prime time: 2,500,000 people

NOS Journaal daytime: 950,000 people

Hart van Nederland: 1,000,000 people

(Attachment: Rapport-PR-NS-LF)

Online/social media reach

2,307,739 people

Total budget €85,000

PR value €2,500,000

In just a week we transformed an old scullery into a makeshift shop, crude but with NS’ unmistakable house style.

Half of December, we made gloves, scarves, and other Christmas presents. Students even wrote about their products on ECO labels.

Everything was planned, to the smallest detail, such as using sustainable timber for multifunctional, reusable furniture.

Our key visual among the lost-and-found items was a cuddly-toy rabbit, the embodiment of a loved object. We made it bigger, using 36 kilos of coats, bags, shirts, jeans, blankets, sleeping bags and tents.

Because we collaborated with renowned photographer Arjan Benning, a prolific press photographer, we secured ourselves a five-page article in a major Saturday newspaper.

We had walking billboards at the ready, but media attention had generated so much interest they weren’t necessary.

Empathy with the project made everyone work harder. We maximised the cooperation and stayed within budget.

NS transports 438 million people every year. It’s constantly on the lookout for sustainable solutions, seeing them as a moral obligation to its passengers. People generally aren’t interested in stories about recycling and waste disposal (boring, out of touch), unless they’re really outstanding or unusual. Neither was the case at NS.

But NS still felt the need to tell this story.

The challenge was in transforming an instrumental and seemingly irrelevant message into an exciting and accessible activation for travellers. Furthermore, with social media platforms full of stories about late and overcrowded trains, NS’ reputation left much to be desired.

NS needed action, not words.

We wanted our activation to engage and surprise people, first the press then the passengers.

Our approach was to highlight one of NS’ many sustainability projects: reuniting lost items with their owners, thus helping NS passengers and limiting the accumulation of ‘junk’.

Forty-five per cent of items are returned, some are recycled and the rest sold as junk: a mountain of inspiration.

Every lost item has a story: many of them are endeared objects, laden with emotion.

The extraordinary location, its layout, the huge rabbit, the curiosity cabinet with weird items, the handmade products and the efforts of 150 students (earning study points for 300 products). They all contributed to a fascinating and endearing story.

With this Lost & Found Project we put these items at the centre of a picture that appealed to a huge audience: passengers and press, young and old.