Sunday, November 2, 2008

Quick question about advertising

Why is csx doing advertising on my morning radio station, WCRB? Clearly, it has an audience of more station than me (witness the constant ads for Boston Private Bank?). I realize that it is a shipping company, but it never talks about sipping options. Instead, the ad constantly informs me how environmentally friendly their trains are.

Which is great, I suppose, but I'm not really in the position to buy a train. Nor do I know what I'd do with it, if I were.

3 comments:

sco said...

They're likely advertising their stock more than their service. There's probably also a PR component to it after they've been wrangling with the state over track ownership.

noternie said...

positioning.

they ship stuff. you already knew that, so they don't waste time on it.

environmentally friendly. you know, as opposed to trucks? trucks which scare drivers on crowded roadways. trucks that overturn or blowout tires and clog up your commute.

there are people out there that make decisions about how to have stuff shipped. they listen to the radio, too. have they considered using trains?

and if you thought about it, you might champion the use of trains over trucks. like some do with wind and solar farms over coal fired plants.

noternie said...

I saw a TV commerical for Norfolk Southern, I think it was. Another rail company. They were focusing on how many loads they had taken off the road. They actually used a graphic of a tree picking containers off the back of road rigs and putting them on rail beds.

Then I saw a TV ad for CSX. Same kind of thing. They are absolutely trying to position rail as an environmentally preferable method of shipping consumer goods.