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Grand LIA - Digital

Entrant: McCann Melbourne, Melbourne
Metro Trains
"Dumb Ways to Die Campaign"


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  • Corporate Name of Client:
    Metro Trains
  • Client Account Director:
    Alec Hussian
  • Advertiser's Supervisor:
    Chloe Alsop
  • Agency Account Director:
    Adrian Mills
  • Planner:
    Adrian Mills
  • Agency:
    McCann Melbourne , Melbourne
  • Executive Creative Director:
    John Mescall
  • Creative Director:
    Pat Baron
  • Copywriter:
    John Mescall
  • Art Director:
    Pat Baron
  • Illustrator:
    Julian Frost
  • Typographer:
    Pat Baron
  • Agency Producers:
    Mark Bradley
    Cinnamon Darval
  • Director:
    Julian Frost
  • Developer:
    Sam Baird
  • Animator:
    Julian Frost
  • Description of the Project:
  • TASK: To reduce preventable deaths and accidents in young Melbournians. But most of the behaviours that lead to rail related accidents were 100% avoidable – caused by people behaving irresponsibly or the result of moments of stupidity. Running on the tracks, driving around barriers because they couldn’t be bothered waiting, not paying attention to where they were walking. Simply dumb. But young people hate being told what to do. So the strategy was simple. Turn a message that young people need to hear, into a message they want to hear. We created a song, and launched it through the completed suite of paid, owned and earned channels. Radio. Youtube. TV. PR. Social Media. Press. Outdoor. We turned iTunes and Soundcloud into media vehicles. Additionally, we created an App and Children's book to extend engagement with the campaign.
    Ours was a four-part strategy: 1. TREAT THIS AS ENTERTAINMENT, NOT ADVERTISING: As such, we launched the song like a music promoter would. To do this we used both traditional (Radio, TV, Cinema, Posters, Station Ambient) and social media (Sound Cloud, Tumblr and Instagram) to drive traffic. 2. AMPLIFY THROUGH THE POWER OF PR AND SOCIAL MEDIA: Extend the reach of the campaign through social media and traditional PR beyond the initial $300K campaign. 3. ASK FOR A COMMITMENT: Invite our target group after watching the video to pledge their commitment to being safe around trains by visiting our campaign site or interact with our in station posters. 4. EXTEND ENGAGEMENT: We released Dumb Ways to Die the game. It went to number 1 in the free app charts in 17 countries including the USA, UK, Germany, Australia, Canada & New Zealand.
    Our goals were straightforward. Our results phenomenal. 1. INCREASE PUBLIC AWARENESS AND ENGAGEMENT WITH RAIL SAFETY - More the 55 million views on YouTube - Charted on iTunes in 28 countries selling 100,000 copies - App downloads over 14 Million - 50% campaign recall amongst core target market - 34% of core target said they would be safer around trains because of the campaign. 2. GET 10,000 MELBOURNIANS TO COMMIT TO BE SAFE AROUND TRAINS: In the first 4 months over 44,000 Melbournians pledged “not to do dumb things around trains”. Another million Australians have pledged to be safe through the mobile game. 3. REDUCE THE NUMBER OF NE:AR MISSES AND ACCIDENTS AROUND TRAINS 20% reduction in rail accidents in the first 3 months.