Train services usually hide comments like these:

"Phoning on the train is impossible!"

"Sometimes the trains can be exacerbating”

"You have to stand in the aisle."

But Deutsche Bahn, Germany's national rail service, put these comments and others like them on giant billboards where millions of commuters could see them.

Why? A simple insight: straight talk and humor would be the gateways to change the rail service’s reputation. For years, customer satisfaction on the regional German short haul service DB Regio in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) had been declining.

So DB Regio’s agency launched “Ganz ehrlich!“ (or “In All Honesty!”), a disarming and humorous campaign that acknowledged the rail lines imperfections and opened up a dialog in order to increase commuters’ identification with the surprisingly reliable service. In addition to the honest and humorous billboards, the “In All Honesty” campaign invited 3000 passengers to take "test" journeys and asked all to post feedback on www.bahn.de/ehrlich-nrw.

Transparency proved to be the right ticket. The “test” riders had a 90 percent satisfaction rate, and even the media improved the tone of its coverage, with more than two dozen positive articles about the campaign, compared to only two negative ones. What’s more, by year end, the average “likeability” rating for DB Regio NRW had increased 17% while (confidential) ridership increased for the first time in years. Excitement is now building for the 2013 phase of the program, in which 15 will be chosen to be the “Face” of DB Regio NRW.

Disarm with humor and honesty

• In September, media outreach and hilariously honest billboards drove more than 30,000 to apply to become testers, who would receive free rides in exchange for online feedback. So many applied that we tripled the number of testers to 3,000.

• Throughout October, our testers rode the rails and provided feedback, joined by others in an open dialogue on the DB Regio site. And when 90 percent of testers expressed satisfaction and 88 percent said they’d recommend DB Regio, we made sure the media heard the news.

Positively their campaign

• We turned the 2013 campaign over to our riders. By November 30, using “photo boxes” at rail stops or online entry forms, riders could submit photographs and statements about why they loved to travel by train. From the resulting 632 submissions, online voting will select five DB ambassadors to be “Our Face in 2013.”

The campaign dramatically changed the messaging and tone of media coverage. The 3-month campaign prompted 125 print, online, TV and radio stories, with positive stories outnumbering negative ones more than 12:1.

All the positive attention helped increase the average “likeability” rating 17% (according to the most recent Infas customer survey). Campaign tracking also revealed that those who remembered the campaign awarded DB Regio NRW more “likability” points than those who did not. There has also been a rising perception that DB Regio NRW is easing transportation problems in the region.