(24 Jul 2020, 9:14 am)Jimmi wrote Been having this discussion on Facebook a few times recently and I can't help but feel many of these Premium brands like Sapphire, Platinum from National Express West Midlands/Coventry or Palladium in Blackpool are a bit outdated now as they aren't particularly special anymore, Blackpool in particular is a case of the whole fleet is Palladium now so where do you go from here? Will just be a case of adding little bits to buses with a brand that doesn't stand out anymore.

There are a few exceptions to where this has been done right IMO, such as Transdev Harrogate's 36 as it looks and feels pretty premium and there isn't a fleet full of identical buses in that area to that spec. I feel GNE somewhat get away with X-Lines particularly as it's currently a newly developed brand and IMO isn't too heavily emphasised on being 'premium' it's more geared towards the express elements of the routes and at least they haven't used a very drab grey colour either.

I'd just get rid of Sapphire now as it's somewhat meaningless in terms of being premium now, it's just another brand, I would ditch it and put everything in the new standard livery which although I'm not a fan of, it would at least look fresh and come across like some effort is being put in as quite a lot of the fleet is at a point where they look incredibly shabby now.

I agree with you on the Nat Ex/Blackpool front. The difference I guess with Blackpool is rather than making a two tier system they've improved the perception of bus travel generally across the town, which is possible in their position as a medium sized company in t self-contained region/network. It will be interesting to see if their strategy coverts to profit. Of course their objectives a a municipal rather than a corporation will be different anyway.

I'm not even sure it's a brand anymore. I'd say a brand is validated when it becomes the default reference name to the product by customers. I.E 'The Angel bus (21)' versus 'The Sapphire number 6'? Not sure.  Sub-brand or tag-line may be more appropriate.