“Travel Inter-City like the men do”: Marketing British Rail’s Inter-City in Britain 1964-1979

Abstract

The change in brand from British Railways to British Rail (BR) marked an important moment in the history of Britain’s railway. Running alongside BR’s modernization was a wider process of “professionalization” within the field of marketing. This paper explores how the wider professionalization of marketing impacted BR’s own marketing practices, showing that after 1965 BR opened its doors to new methods, means, and perhaps most importantly, specialists from outside the railway industry. Such marketing efforts helped to frame the railway in terms of individual travelers’ specific economic needs: by 1968 it had effectively segmented its passengers into demographic audiences, and by 1975, BR had a much better understanding of its markets. These individual economies were often highly gendered and saw only mixed success, but ultimately demonstrated an application of research, advertising, and promotion.