Situation:

Mumbai has 1675 vehicles/km. In this fast-paced city, every motorist is in a tearing hurry. Resulting in traffic jams and indiscipline. Like excessive honking. In fact, vehicle owners fit extra loud horns than standard to navigate through teeming traffic. But law enforcement couldn’t enforce enough, with just 1293 people booked in the last 10 years. Their awareness campaigns like “No Honking Day”, “HornVrat” and “Horn Not OK Please” as well as the efforts of the environmental NGO, the Awaaz Foundation, couldn’t cut through to their audience. In the last decade, while vehicles on the road have increased, so has honking – 18 million times/hour.

Brief & Objective:

70% of noise pollution on roads still happens due to indiscriminate honking. Affecting citizens’ physical and mental health. After many attempts to curb it, the Mumbai Police sought a solution that did what fines couldn’t – generate instant results and maximum awareness.

70% of noise pollution on Mumbai’s roads is due to excessive honking. After many attempts to curb it, Mumbai Police did what fines couldn’t. They changed behaviour with an unexpected dash of humour. Turning 5 select traffic signals into Punishing Signals. When honking crossed 85 dB, the countdown timer at a signal resets – making impatient motorists wait more, until they honk less. Gauging the results, Mumbai Police announced a scale-up to 10 more locations; and then to the entire traffic system (CNN). Administrators of 3 other Indian cities (Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Indore) announced a roll-out (The Times of India). Mumbai Police’s tweeted video of the Punishing Signals became the Most Liked & Shared, and #1 Indian topic, all social media taken. News outlets in 35 countries (New York Times, The Guardian, CNN etc.) covered it in 1000+ articles – many suggesting its incorporation into their nation’s traffic systems.

The Punishing Signal activation resulted in localised behaviour change at select Mumbai signals with a dash of humour and humanity. The key message of “honk more, wait more” complemented the activation well to achieve that.

The PR strategy was to take this message to a larger group of Mumbai’s citizens in order to boost awareness, behaviour change, and impact.

So the key focus of the PR mix was to cut an interesting film of the whole activation, maintaining the same tone of humour. It was achieved by using the typical funny-sounding delivery of a Mumbai traffic cop for the narration; with subtitles in English (and later in regional languages) for wider comprehension. All PR activity & engagement was then channelised to have this film garner maximum eyeballs and mileage, organically.

Mumbai Police developed special decibel meters in collaboration with CMS Systems. With Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s help, they were rigged to the traffic signals at CSMT, Marine Drive, Peddar Road, Hindamata and Bandra West in Mumbai between 10 May 2019 and 11 May 2019. Each meter had a uni-directional mike to isolate honking frequencies in real-time. These were relayed back to the meter coded to analyse the honking dB level and relay to a Digital LED Display for all to see. If the level crossed 85 dB (dangerous), the meter activated the countdown timer to reset. Making the signal stay Red longer, and the impatient motorists, wait longer. Thus the signal became The Punishing Signal. Interactive signal-linked OOH relayed messages reminding motorists to honk less for the Green signal. While the activation got instant results, its video was posted on Mumbai Police’s official Twitter handle (5 million followers) for maximum reach.

Assessed average honking dBs at Punishing Signals a week before and a month after roll-out, found a 32% decrease.

P Ashok (Mumbai Police) announced further roll-out in 10 locations of Mumbai; then to the entire traffic system (CNN).

KTR Rao (Telangana Minister) and Police Heads announced a roll-out in Hyderabad city, identifying 16 locations - Times of India (ToI).

B Rao (City Commissioner) announced a roll-out in Bengaluru city (ToI).

District Collector LK Jatav announced a roll-out in Indore city, for “Silent City” tag (ToI).

While it had instant on-ground results, its “film” tweeted by Mumbai Police led to 6.6 Billion Impressions.

It was Most Liked & Shared and #1 Indian topic, all social media taken.

News outlets in 35 countries - The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN etc. - covered it in 1000+ articles.

All, at zero media spend.

Mumbai Police’s approval rating reached an all-time high.