As part of their "Be a Great Westerner" multi-media advertising campaign which runs across OOH, radio, TV, digital, newspaper, First Great Western were keen to continue this through face to face customer engagement and in station interruptive experiences and enlisted Blackjack Promotions to help with this. British train operator First Great Western partnered with experiential and staffing agency Blackjack Promotions to take a bespoke First Great Western train set on tour across the UK during the summer.

First Great Western launched the campaign to engage with new and existing customers, to highlight the fantastic regions that they serve. Train routes take in beautiful coastline across the country and include a multitude of vibrant city break destinations. This drive was to encourage existing and new customers to travel via train for UK summer holidays and weekends away. In addition to this, First Great Western wanted to maximise the revenue of their customer database.

The interactive campaign invited people to join the 'First Great Western Challenge' and try their hand at driving a First Great Western-branded train along the track. A tactical game of skill, consumers were tested in a time challenge to see who can make it around the track in the best time, to make it onto the leader board. Customer Data was captured in the process to increase the numbers of "Escape" e-newsletter subscribers. This allows customers to get the latest offers, events and inspiration sent to their inbox via two monthly emails, among a range of other benefits.

The train set was hugely popular, encouraging footfall onto First Great Western stands of between 500 - 1000 customers daily at each event. "We had an objective to engage with our customers and learn more about them. In order to do this, we knew that we needed something that was going to grab attention and draw a crowd - our Train Set certainly did that. We're thrilled that our customers love the track and can reminisce - the same feeling that taking the train down to the West Country offers lots of our customers" Jamie Anderson, First Great Western Campaign Manager.

These events follow the success of Blackjack's bespoke First Great Western giant snowglobe, which made an appearance at Reading and Paddington train stations over Christmas. The Scalextric train set became the centre piece at a range of events throughout the summer and provided a key attraction to enable FGW to engage with consumers. Iconic structures were custom made by Blackjack and added to the set - an idea which can be tailored to any brand.