Lumo and Mother Encourage Us to Avoid ‘Flight Shame’

The agency's first work for Lumo launches the all-electric London to Edinburgh

By Creative Salon

05 April 2022

Lumo, the all-new, all-electric London to Edinburgh train operator, is giving people along its route the info they need to make informed transportation choices. From today, it will be running a campaign created by Mother that details the benefits of its all-electric train travel.

With the long distances (London and Stevenage to/from Newcastle, Morpeth or Edinburgh) involved, the standard school of thought could be that flying is common sense. This campaign aims to smash that rumour with equal dollops of humour and fact, and leans into the concept of ‘flight shame’ or flygskam, which aims to get more people ditching planes for more sustainable modes of transport, including long distance rail.

In the film, directed by Tim McNaughton of The Bobbsey Twins, we follow Jen. Jen is consumed by flight shame from her London to Edinburgh return so decides to offset her carbon footprint. She does this in extravagant ways, from turning her home into a plant sanctuary, giving up washing, trading her car in for a donkey, going completely off grid and moving to what she thought was a commune. All have unanticipated and humorous downsides. Yet she could have avoided all the hassle by travelling with Lumo, which has one sixth the carbon footprint of flying equivalent journeys.

The film shoot doubled to produce a series of behind the scenes and meme clips for use in social media. The press hones in on the carbon footprint difference between Lumo and flying, offering ways to disguise oneself on a flight, and highlighting the faff we all have to go through when travelling by plane v the simplicity of going from city centre to city centre on Lumo. Out of home encourages people to ditch the plane, with a series of common flight gripes blown up to live in the super-size of posters.

Natalie Jolly, marketing manager at Lumo commented: “Our trains are one of the most environmentally sustainable ways to travel between the destinations we serve and we’re proud of the investment we’ve made in making this a reality. But being environmentally-conscious doesn’t need to always be so serious, we wanted to have some fun with our brand launch campaign, making our potential passengers excited about travelling with Lumo, we can’t wait to see them on-board.”

Running across media in Greater London, Scotland and the North East of England, this is the first work by Mother for the brand since being appointed by Lumo following a competitive pitch.

Nick Hallbery, creative director at Mother added: “Lumo wants to change the way people view UK long distance travel. It’s their, and our, belief that travelling by train just makes more sense all round - and in this work we had fun bringing that fact to life.”

CREDS

Creative Agency – Mother

Production Company - Arts & Sciences

Director: Bobbsey Twins

DOP: Alex Barber

Managing Director / EP: James Bland

Producer: Emma Butterworth

Production Manager: Natalie Isaac

Production Assistant: Nancy Eite Cooper

Edit House - STITCH

Editor: Leo King

Producer: Angela Hart