Public safety

Arguably the most high profile Government advertising campaign of recent years.

In a sector more used to communicating through on message traditional platform signage and public service announcements in newspapers, advertising agency McCann produced a stand out campaign that mixed animated characters and a catchy tune complete with an “offbeat” storyline and humour in launching a campaign about safety around trains as an online music video with the title “Dumb Ways to Die”.

The team involved had a strong track record of Government work, including a “gamification” style approach to encouraging schoolkids to study maths and science under the heading of “Choose Your Own Adventure”.

While almost every pitch presentation of a new ad campaign has a “viral” element nowadays, Dumb Ways to Die has become the viral benchmark that all future campaigns aspire to.

At time of writing, the video has had a total of 92 million views and still rising. It’s been shared over 4 million times, attracting the widest possible audience for Victoria’s Metro Trains. The campaign is also now the most awarded campaign in the history of the Cannes Lions festival and the attendant media interest, not mention the games, follow ups, ring tones and other brand extensions has seen the campaign completely exceed all audience reach and awareness targets on an economic budget.

McCann research also claims that over 25 million people have stated that they would be safer around trains because of the campaign.