Metro Trains Australia’s Chloe Alsop is the Asia-Pacific Tambuli 2014 Chief Marketing Communications Officer of the Year.
adobo spoke with Alsop, the client behind McCann Melbourne’s ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, about what it’s like to be the client behind the most awarded campaign in history.
According to Alsop, the amount of recognition is overwhelming as well as heartwarming. “It’s good that it is the most awarded campaign in history and it has a good cause at the heart of it. We’re not selling toothpaste, it’s not about money – it’s the safety message at the end of the day,” she said.
The safety message campaign features colorful animated beans who suffer gory deaths caused by their own silly behavior. Part of its success can be attributed to its humorous, positive approach, a far cry from the usual proscriptive messages when it comes to safety messages. Alsop shared that before ‘Dumb Ways to Die’, Metro Trains had a very negative, authoritarian marketing style consisting of just signage everywhere. “People in Melbourne don’t or didn’t have a great affiliation with the Metro brand. I think it’s because of every step of the journey we’re telling them what to do and what not to do which I don’t really think works. It doesn’t work for me and I don’t think, especially with the younger segment, that they listen to a train company telling them what to do and it just becomes like wallpaper,” Alsop said, adding that the ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ campaign was the company’s way to get people to listen.
As it turned out, people did listen – literally – to the campaign’s infectious song, which worked together with its adorable animation to deliver the safety message. Alsop shared that when the agency told her over the phone that they were going to do a song, her reaction was, “I’m hanging up. We’re not doing a song like it’s the eighties!” Hearing the song, however, changed her mind. “This is it. This is good stuff,” she said. Indeed, the numbers proved her right. Within 24 hours of its launch, the Dumb Ways to Die song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes. 48 hours later, it was ranked number six on the singer/songwriter category on the global iTunes chart.
On working with McCann, Alsop said there was a lot of trust between the agency and the client. “I know they’re not following a process like a tick the box process, so for me to trust them with this, or to convince me of it, it wasn’t that hard.”
Alsop explained that the animation allowed them to bring out the message in a way that wouldn’t have been possible using realistic visuals. “It would make the humour quite disturbing and almost arrogant and rude from the brand to use that especially knowing that people have lost people through these accidents,” she said.
Alsop explained that the idea was to approach safety from a different angle, as kids were unlikely to worry about death. “There’s been a similar campaign with graveyards next to tracks, and that might work for you as you get older, you get a sense of your mortality more. But for kids, they’re not scared of dying. So you have to sort of think, like a child almost and think, what would they hate more, and maybe it’s looking silly or dumb in front of their friends, not cool,” Alsop said.
Although the campaign appears to be for kids, it’s been quite a hit with adults, and Alsop explained that targeting kids was also a way to reach their parents. “When you’re working on campaigns that need to change behaviour, I think you have to look long-term. Also, the thinking behind targeting children is that if you get the kids on board, then the parents or adults have to follow as well,” she said.
The idea of ‘Dumb Ways to Die’ was based on actual behaviour that Metro Trains’ frontline staff observed, such as running along the edge of the platform in high heels, trying to retrieve items that were dropped on the tracks, running down a ramp with a stroller, or jogging with headphones on. “With modern technology, people on their phones talking – everyone’s so busy in their lives not really thinking about what they’re doing,” Alsop said.
When it comes to results, the campaign has definitely gone viral, with the video getting close to 57 million views and 3.8 million shares, according to McCann. The game app topped the list on iTunes, with over 14 million downloads across 135 countries. Of course, the campaign is also the most awarded in Cannes history, with 28 Lions, five of which were Grand Prix awards. 14 million people pledged to be safer around trains, and Metro Trains also noted a 21 percent reduction in accidents and deaths on its network.
However, Alsop said it’s difficult to measure its effect on behavior. “It’s a long-term behavioural change campaign and we’re really about getting the message out there. Then, the next step is up to the individual, so it’s hard to tell what you’ve stopped, or what you’ve prevented,” she said.
Since its launch on November 16, 2012, the campaign has evolved, and now has a Valentine’s Day message as well as an April Fools Day message. “We’re sort of looking at them as the safety champions of everything now,” Alsop said.
They are also working on more train safety messages which may be seen outside Melbourne. They are also launching plush toys, revenue from which will be used to keep the campaign running. Speaking about the campaign’s success, Alsop stressed the importance of a good client-agency partnership. “It feels like we’re all on one team. You have to have the right people in the mix, because you can’t fake that. You need to be able to trust people and it has to be a genuine trust, so that’s probably why you can get to this stage. You can’t give a team that you don’t know or don’t trust, faith to do something like this.”
