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Craig David finds better days by train

New music video for supported by Trainline from Mother London encourages sustainable travel

Georgie Moreton

Deputy Editor, BITE Creativebrief

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Ever the advocate of sustainable travel, Craig David has hung up his walking shoes in favour of taking the train in a new music video supported by Trainline.

The brand new song ‘Better Days (I came by train)’ from Craig David is part of the brand’s I Came By Train movement created by Mother London which raises awareness of the environmental benefits of rail and encourages pride in choosing to travel by train all 7 days of the week.

Where cars and planes create 58% of the UK’s transport CO2 emissions, the entire rail network adds up to just 1.5%, making train travel a much more environmentally friendly option. Trainline has launched ‘I came by Train’ to become a rallying cry for UK train travel to encourage more journeys across the sector irregardless of booking system, operator or location.

The easy listening anthem from R&B legend Craig Daivid, is inspired by Craig’s own passion for the environment and has been designed to ‘shed a light on the importance of making more sustainable choices’, such as travelling by train in the form of a love song to Mother Nature.

The song is accompanied by a visually stunning music video in stylised animation, produced and directed by the award-winning Golden Wolf at Stink bringing to life the beauty of nature and travel. The video illustrates the lyrics of the song and stars David travelling by train through a series of wondrous landscapes. The destruction of such beauty is just one of the devastating impacts of climate change.

Enabling sustainable choices

Where consumers have a strong desire to help fight climate change, the issue can be so large and all consuming that it paralyses action. “There’s a degree of fatalism when it comes to the climate emergency – most of us, deep down, know the scale of the problem (code red for humanity) so they think that there is little they can do to address it… which encourages apathy and inaction.” says Omar El-Gammal, Strategy Director at Mother.

This campaign aims to help travelers make more informed, sustainable decisions by providing an easy way of making positive change. He continues; “With I Came By Train, we wanted a more inviting and positive conversation. Environmental scare tactics have run out of track, there’s little point making people feel worse about their actions without giving a positive alternative.” 

Providing people with simple switches will contribute to the significant behavioural shifts needed to combat climate change. 

“The change we need to tackle the climate emergency is only going to happen if businesses do their bit to help people take steps towards more sustainable lifestyles; changing the way we move is a key part of that transition – taking the train instead of driving creates 70% less CO2 on average.” says Jo McClintock, VP Brand from Trainline.

The earth anthem sits on Craig David’s official YouTube channel and in addition to the track out of home helps to convey rail’s sustainability credentials, which will appear at key locations nationwide. The collection spotlights the fact that train travel is 7x less polluting than flying out in the open and features some of the consequences of the climate emergency as headlines.

The unique brand artist partnership acts as the conversation starter needed to encourage more open climate focused discourse and begin to turn the dial toward more sustainable travel choices. 

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