Trainline partners with none other than Craig David on an original animated music video

Craig David has partnered with travel company Trainline for an official music video, currently available to view on Craig David’s YouTube channel, highlighting the environmental benefits of rail travel. The song, titled Better Days, kicks off the brand’s I Came By Train campaign, which pushes travellers towards trains as a sustainable travel choice – “irrespective of where they are booked or which train operator is taken”, as a press release states. A “fantastical” animated music video accompanies the song; it is produced and directed by Golden Wolf at Stink, with Mother working on creative across the campaign.

Trainline cites that cars and planes create 58 per cent of the UK’s transport CO2 emissions, whereas the rail network accounts for 1.5 per cent (the brand shows how it worked out these statistics here).

Better Days follows Craig David as he travels by train through a series of landscapes, with some hinting to the human impact on the environment. These scenes are accompanied by lyrics such as: “I know you’re tired of all the pain we’re causing, but we can make a meaningful change.” The singer-songwriter also follows an angelic figure throughout these scenes; the pair cross paths in space before Craig David returns to earth via train. The music video culminates with a utopian depiction of Earth, with a range of animals flying alongside the train as it soars past more abundant landscapes.

The press release explains that the campaign anthem “is inspired by Craig David’s passion for the environment and sheds light on the importance of making more sustainable choices, such as travelling by train, in the form of a heartfelt love song to Mother Nature.”

Commenting on the upbeat tone of the work, Omar El-Gammal, strategy director at Mother, states: “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. With I Came By Train, we wanted a more inviting and positive conversation.” The director continues by stating that “environmental scare tactics” have run out of track: “There’s little point making people feel worse about their actions without giving a positive alternative. This campaign gives a hopeful message about the impact a simple behavioural switch can make. In a nutshell, we want to move the debate on from ‘flight shame’ to a more positive ‘train brag’.”

The I Came By Train campaign comes with a dedicated website (icamebytrain.com), “packed with facts about switching to train travel and saving on your tickets,” the press release says. Better Days is now available to download on all major streaming platforms.