Ukrzaliznytsia rebranding concept

Public joint stock company "Ukrainian railway" is a national carrier of cargo and passengers. The company's goal is to meet the needs for safe and high-quality railway transportation, ensure the effective functioning and development of railway transport, and create conditions for increasing the industry's competitiveness.

Economic activity of JSC "Ukrzaliznytsya" began on December 1, 2015. The company is the legal successor of all rights and obligations of the State administration of railway transport of Ukraine, as well as subordinate enterprises and institutions that have the status of separate legal entities.

New Ukrzaliznytsya

Times are rapidly changing, the world is changing around us and are born of a new era. The era in which we live – the era of globalization and opportunities, the era of the Internet and fast, convenient access to any purchases, technologies and desires. And when a person can afford to buy anything with just two clicks on the site, the supplier of services or products must do everything to make the choice and design of the purchase as aesthetic, comfortable and convenient as possible.

And when it comes to such an important Corporation as Ukrazaliznytsia, whose services are used by everyone in a country with a population of 45 million, its external brand component and website must be impeccable and meet all the rules and trends of the modern world. The new logo and website of Ukrzaliznytsya should give inspiration and spark positive thoughts about upcoming trips.

The Dizz Agency team took the challenge of modernity and created an updated branding and website design for Ukrzaliznytsya, where everything is convenient and comfortable. The created elements open up opportunities and horizons for traveling both native Ukraine and cozy Europe. This is another step towards better changes and a reminder that the convenience and comfort of customers for Ukrzaliznytsya is above all else. And though slowly, the company is changing positively, and at the same time the trust of passengers is growing.

Goals and Tasks

Travel is what inspires, travel is a direct provider of happiness and emotions that are incomparable to anything in the world. Therefore, Ukrzaliznytsya is a factory that provides tickets to dreams, produces rays of heat that connect us with our relatives, gives us the opportunity to feel admiration and emotion before a new unknown world.

Ukrainians are worth the best and most modern. When creating the site, we were guided by the task to open all the possibilities of traveling in Ukraine. Show the world how comfortable our services can be, how convenient our trains can be, and the services that make our routes interesting and unusual. Our main goal was to find common ground “brand "Ukrzaliznytsya" - web environment-services-passengers " and restart them, remove old, Soviet stereotypes and help find a new, modern reality.

All new web technologies and experience in creating websites of leading European railway companies have been implemented in a new branding and design “www.uz.gov.ua".

How much time was spent

It took us about six months to think through and implement all the things that were planned in the design. An important mission was to carefully consider and analyze the work of foreign railway corporations with passengers and generate a new, convenient model that is best suited for Ukrzaliznytsya and Ukraine.

We know that six months is a relatively short period, and that's how long it took to completely restart and reset the shackles of greyness and routine of the Ukrzaliznytsya brand. Now every visit to the site will be comfortable, and contemplation and perception of the corporate style will be interesting. Users and passengers will be aesthetically satisfied and full of warm thoughts about their upcoming trips.

The brand is the face and heart of the company, its visual and emotional reflection. In order to show passengers that Ukrzaliznytsya is ready to change and grow-you need not only to implement certain changes, but also to turn the page and start from scratch, in a certain way “cutting off” all the remnants of antiquity. And this point of restart can be achieved by updating the visual part of the brand – a modern logo, high-quality corporate identity and a more perfect, thoughtful identity.

Logo redesign

The new logo was designed to replace the current one, as in modern realities it is considered outdated and does not reflect the necessary message for passengers about the company's new modernized change policy.

After many developed versions of the old logo redesign, the goal of which was to update and refresh the brand, a complete rethink was decided, resulting in a new vision. We came to the conclusion that the problem with the old logo is that it is not associated with the railway in any way.

The new logo is catchy at first glance, stimulating thinking and increasing interest. The two letters " U " reflect the first letter in the company name, and at the same time reveals the deep meaning of the double use of this letter. The two letters " B " are a symbol of the fork of two railway tracks, which are one of the most important elements of the railway track, these are the iron arteries of our state, which help to move without attraction and create magnificent highways – access to many cities, towns, villages of both Ukraine and Europe.

This idea is great for a national cargo and passenger carrier. The advantage of this idea is also internationality. For Ukrainians, this is a clear and familiar letter "У", and for foreigners who do not know our language, this is a clear graphic symbol that is associated with the railway.

The goal of the logo is to make the brand recognizable. It is based on this that we have presented how and where in real life it can be used, namely, on what media. From cups and t-shirts, to train cars and outdoor advertising.

You can use an advertising campaign to make a statement, tell about new things, and attract attention. It is not enough to simply change the logo design and expect any changes in consumer behavior. It is necessary to change the opinion about the UZ, to declare a change in the development perspective-to convince.

Outdoor advertising with the right calls – this is exactly what has a positive effect on the minds of consumers. UZ is a monopoly in this industry, which is why, in our opinion, the national carrier allows itself to neglect this element of marketing. It is fair to ask yourself the question of whether outdoor advertising for UZS is appropriate, because most people already use UZ services, in the absence of a full-fledged alternative option. We are convinced of the opposite. UZ should change its philosophy and become closer to its passengers.

It is necessary to conduct a dialogue with the consumer through advertising, improving services, timely informing, and so on.

We offer you to look at examples of outdoor advertising with the updated UZ logo, which will serve as a quality tool for improving communication and increasing sales.

Ukrzaliznytsya has two main directions: cargo transportation and passenger transportation. For a successful advertising campaign, it is necessary to identify the needs of the target audience.

Passenger needs: to move from point A to point B, to travel, to be provided with the necessary services.

Target actions of the UZ for this audience segment:
talk about the advantages of a UZ;
motivate people to travel and thus develop tourism;
inform in a bright, emotional manner about events that can be visited with the help of UZ trains and so on.

Cargo transportation – is an industry that does not need advertising at first glance. UZ customers in this segment are large companies, factories, and production facilities, and the average consumer can also use this service, but does he know about it?

What can the UZ be useful for an ordinary client:

• transportation of cars to another city;
• transporting a lot of things when moving to another city;
• ordering delivery of construction materials and so on.

Therefore, we allowed ourselves to go far enough and imagine what an advertising campaign for UZ might look like.

Clear calls will help motivate potential passengers to use UZ services. To do this, you can inform about special offers, discounts, events, and so on.

Website redesign

The UZ website was last updated in 2012. Since then, not only the tastes of users have changed, but also the experience of interacting with sites.many people now use the Internet more on mobile devices and tablets – desktops are taking a back seat.

After analyzing the current UZ website, we came to the conclusion that it has a number of problems. Namely:

• The site has an outdated design;
• The site is not adapted for mobile devices;
• Information on the site is poorly structured, which causes inconvenience to the user;
• There is no convenient navigation on the site;
• The most important problem is that the site is not aimed at the user.

Below are three new transition pages for each of the three sections. The purpose of each page in this section is to inform and call the target user to action. For example, being on the "Passengers", page, the user sees not dry information about how to buy a ticket and a news feed, but gets to a page that tells about the advantages of UZ, tells about special offers, ideas where you can go using UZ services, and generally calls for action. The purpose of the page – is to give an idea, interest, and encourage action. This is the philosophy we promote. No-boring and incomprehensible texts.

Navigation

We were getting out of the problems listed above, and it was decided to make a redesign, excluding the current errors. For this purpose, the website was divided into three sections: Passengers, cargo Transportation and About us. This distribution improves site navigation. The three sections are the three directions of UZ. These are three different approaches, and most importantly, they are three different users who have different needs. Now the site does not have a clear division, everything is in one section, which means that finding the necessary information is too difficult.

Home page for passengers

One of three transition pages. The main purpose of this page is to inform you about everything related to trips, as well as give you an idea where you can go. This is a dynamic page where information is updated quickly. For example, the "Popular routes" screen will show real routes that are frequently used by UZ passengers.

But the first thing the user sees is a field for searching for tickets. This is the key and most popular feature. We have improved the search and added new features to it. Below is the section with the actual purchase of the ticket.

Special offer

A unique screen whose task is to suggest current routes to visit. Special offers are formed based on the needs of passengers, for example, a music festival that takes place in one of the cities of Ukraine, a trip to Odessa in the summer, or to Bukovel in the winter, when all Ukrainians are going to rest. The unique feature of the screen is its convenient presentation. To take advantage of the offer, you just need to enter the city where the passenger is going to leave, and then the user will be redirected to the search page.

Discount cards

Based on the experience of many European railway companies, we suggest considering what such maps would look like in the version for UZ.

The screen “Create your journey”

On this screen, each user can create their own unique journey. By selecting a specific destination, the consumer receives structured information about the destination city (for the selected period):

• future events available on the selected date;
• place of residence;
• food establishments (food festivals, restaurants, pubs, cafes, etc.)
• entertainment venues.

Improved search and purchase of tickets

At the moment, the UZ site is divided into two components. The first component is a website with all information about the carrier's work and services, the second is a ticket order. In essence, these are now two independent sites. We combined everything in one place. Keeping the convenience of the old site booking.uz.gov.ua we have added new useful features and improved the service in General. Navigation has been improved, ticket orders are divided into steps that are clearly visible, and information is structured in a more understandable way from a visual point of view.

Taking over the experience of foreign carriers, we have identified one of the most convenient services – a card system that allows passengers to save money. By implementing this service, Ukrzaliznytsya can further increase passenger traffic, motivating passengers to travel more often and more profitably.

We do not offer a ready-made model of the discount system, but only give an idea of how it might look in Ukraine.

To do this, we have developed a design of maps and advertising posters that will motivate passengers to travel in General, as well as to purchase such cards. As you can see below, we offer different types of cards for different categories of population: "Standart" for all types of population (for those who travel frequently), "Student" card for students and "Gold" and "Business" cards of increased comfort for businessmen, respectively.

We spent about six months creating this project. We have analyzed international railway companies and adopted their experience, conducted a full-fledged analysis of how to work with passengers.

During this time, we managed to create a new, improved view of Ukrzaliznytsya, and build the right image for consumers of its services.

The updated brand "Ukrzaliznytsya" is a progressive, technological, comfortable, truly European railway company with a thought for its passengers.