Aviva captivates business travelers on new look Waterloo & City line

Financial services group Aviva has teamed up with Viacom Outdoor to be the first advertiser to dominate an entire London Underground line.

To coincide with the reopening of the Waterloo & City line from the 11th September and continuing its ‘Forward thinking’ strategy, Aviva will be taking control of all cross-track posters at an entire platform at Bank station. A further platform at Waterloo station on the Waterloo and City Line will see Aviva command all cross-track opportunities to target the high number of AB business travellers commuting between Waterloo and Bank stations.

Ensuring it maximises brand awareness through the re-opening of the line, Aviva will also be taking over all of the 300 tube car panels in each of the five trains that operate on the Waterloo & City line - marking the first time an advertiser has dominated an entire line on the Underground.

As well as being the sole advertiser at the platforms and on the Tube car panels, Aviva will be branding the walls of the trav-o-lator at Bank station as well as the ticket gateways at the foot of the trav-o-lator in order to capture business commuters using the stations.

The Waterloo & City line has been closed since April 1st and the reopening will reveal the results of a major refurbishment carried out by London Underground to all train exteriors and interiors, along with improvements to the platforms and a fifth train running during peak service.

Sally Shire, Group Brand Director, Aviva, said: “The new-look Waterloo & City line opening gives us a great opportunity to target the UK City audience and is part of our strategy to raise the profile of Aviva in major international cities.”

Will Phipps, Business Director at Starcom said: ‘Aviva is a brand that constantly looks to the future to shape the savings, investments and insurances of its customers. The audience match is perfect for their important financial base but by targeting a mode of transport that has become more modern and more accessible to its users allows the communication to speak much louder to them than mere poster space alone.’

Justin Stark, head of Impact at Viacom Outdoor commented: “The closing of the Waterloo and City Line was the first time this has been done in the 108 years that the line has been running. By taking ownership of the entire line not only is Aviva able to capture the high number of AB business commuters traveling between Waterloo and Bank stations but they have the added brand awareness and goodwill factor associated with the reopening as the journey for commuters is made easier again.”

The campaign will run four weeks with the trav-o-lator activity running for 12 weeks. Planning and buying was done through Starcom.

September 2006