Roses are red, Violets are Blue; a Valentine’s Day Stunt involving Waterloo

Every man, his dog and their PR agency are looking for a bit of page space when it comes to Valentine’s Day – so when someone does it such a refreshingly simple and understated way it does stand head and shoulders above the crowd

Case in point comes from the generally good noises coming from passengers on the platforms in and around London today, all of whom were greeted with a bit of a Valentine’s Day send-off – with the Twitt-o-sphere erupting in appreciation for South West Trains’ pun based tom foolery.

The send off came in the form of a spot of whimsical renaming of key stations on the route, with Waterloo becoming ‘Waterlove,  Salisbury becoming “When Harry met Salisbury” and Liphook transforming into ‘Lips-Hooked’.

Straightforward, simple and wonderfully executed, the resulting coverage did exactly what they wanted – created a bit of good feeling from passengers for the rail provider alongside  extensive coverage citing the South West Trains-Network Rail Alliance as the brains behind the operation.

In the tightly scripted PR spun statements released by SW Trains, the retro-fitted narrative suggested that customers and employees were asked to suggest “quirky, romance-themed” alternative station names “in the spirit of Valentine’s Day” to further hammer home the fact that this faceless bunch of railway types really do care about passenger needs.

Regardless, brilliantly constructed executed and bang on time…. unlike many of the trains today.

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