Every year there are needless deaths or accidents around Melbourne’s trains. And while rail accidents are tragic, they are in most cases completely avoidable. This was particularly true for young adults.

Unfortunately rail safety wasn’t on people’s radar. And with a total budget of $300K, this meant that simply shouting louder wasn’t an option. It meant we needed to leverage both social media and traditional PR to drive awareness and engagement, and ultimately encourage safer behaviour around trains.

We had to turn a message people needed to hear, into a message people wanted to share.

Our strategy was founded on two key truths:

1. 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.

2. Young Australians consume media when and where they want. For us to cut through a market filled with parental slogans on big issues, we needed to embrace both the active choice they make in the media they consume and leverage the power of shareability.

Our strategy was to turn our message about rail safety that no one wanted to hear, into a piece of entertainment that people actively sought out and shared. Embracing the importance of group dynamics within the target market, we chose to avoid the typical patronising voice of authority and create something we hoped people would genuinely want to share. In addition to the entertainment element, we understood there needed to be an edge of controversy to garner the PR and buzz we desired.

Our Idea. Of all the dumb ways to die, getting hit by a train is the dumbest.

Our strategy was unconventional, but measured.

We treated our message as entertainment, not advertising. We launched the clip on YouTube, and promoted it via traditional media like you would any song. We further amplified the reach via social media and PR ensuring we reached mainstream culture via news and radio coverage. Lastly, when we had their attention, we asked for a commitment to be safe, via our microsite.

In just five-months, the campaign became the 4th most viral advertisement ever with 44 million views; the most shared PSA in history, over 44,000 pledges to be safe, generated a remarkable $19.2M in Australian earned media and most importantly saw a 31% decrease in near misses and accidents around trains during the campaign period.