ATLANTA –“Change is in the air” is the tagline of J. Walter Thompson’s new campaign for Norfolk Southern Railroad, according to Ad Week.
The print and television advertising effort targets investors skittish about the poor performance that has come to typify the nation’s railroads. The campaign is designed to persuade decision makers in the investment community–financial analysts, institutional investors and brokers–that the Norfolk, Va.-based carrier’s 1998 acquisition of the ailing Conrail system is beginning to improve its bottom line.
“Norfolk Southern has been through a tough period of acquisition and retraction,” said Mark Simonton, a group account manager at the Atlanta agency. “Now it’s beginning to realize the benefits of those steps. We want to get that message out.”
“Weather Vane,” a 30-second commercial breaking today on cable TV news shows, delivers that message with sparse copy and stark imagery, the language of a rural America still defined by the rhythms of locomotives hauling endless lines of boxcars.
Created by JWT copywriter Steve Kolander and art director Bill Tomassi, the commercial intercuts a freight train powering across Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley with images of rural life–a clothesline, chimes, a swing, a weather vane. The wind, a voiceover explains, symbolizes change.
A print version of the TV ad, scheduled to appear in The Wall Street Journal, depicts the weather vane.