Dumb ways to die

How a Public Service Announcement took over the internet and became an app you will have downloaded by the end of this article.

Once upon a time, there was a security issue in Melbourne, Australia. Metro Trains, the responsible company, wanted to promote rail safety through a marketing campaign. And they did. In a way, that changed advertising forever. McCann Melbourne, the agency responsible for the ad, decided to go an unconventional way to approach the delicate conversation about train safety.

They wanted to do something fun and entertaining instead of just pushing a message to the viewers. The team wrote a song about ‘dumb ways to die,’ such as selling both your kidneys online, poking a grizzly bear, or getting paralyzed after eating glue. The most stupid of all was to die run over by a subway train. And that is the message.

 The song is clever, funny, and, most important: catchy. It was recorded by Tangerine Kitty and launched in November of 2012 and made it to the top 10 charts of iTunes within days. But it really escalated once the YouTube video came on. The colorful characters really are likable, and soon enough, you get caught in a loop, amazed by all the stupid ways to die. The video now has over  325 million views.

Radio stations started playing the song for free, teachers used it to introduce train safety to children, and many artists released their covers of the music. Dumb Ways to Die was the most awarded marketing campaign in the history of Cannes, the world’s most important Festival of Creativity.

Originally made as a Public Service Announcement, the song gained so much popularity that it became more: posters, billboards, children’s books, and a website. In fact, the whole thing went so viral that they built an app game where you can avoid many dumb ways today. It is so cool! I downloaded it at the time and again a few days ago when I started writing this article. Yes, it is still super fun.

On their website, the app now has over 190 million downloads and approximately 2 billion players globally. It was so successful they created Dumb Ways to Die 2, which became the number one app in 83 countries. Even a third version was created, a World Tour. There’s also a store on their online domain to purchase toys, clothing, and books.

But did all that really help people stay safe around trains? According to Brand News, Metro Trains registered a reduction of 21% in train station accidents at the time.  Although it is difficult to state that these results were in response to the campaign, 127 million people have said that Dumb ways to die helped them stay safe around trains, according to their website.

This marketing campaign went beyond all expectations and became a marketing case to be studied profoundly. After all, we all want to know why (and) how Dumb Ways To Die became such a global topic. Let’s explore the possible answers:

1-Storytelling

Storytelling is the ability to share information engagingly and entertainingly while revealing elements of a narrative that usually stimulate the listener’s imagination. It is a valuable skill, and Dumb Ways to die explored its full potential.

They shared in-depth fun, cute, and highly attention-keeping content. They created characters, their names, and their unusual stupid ways of dying. It’s impossible not to smile at least once while watching the video, and during that time, you always want to know more. Smart enough, they keep releasing new information until the end of the video, when the main message is revealed: staying safe around trains.

The story continues on other platforms, staying consistent in the theme, characters, and of course, message. Meaning that the narrative goes on in the spectators’ brains and gets reinforced every time you get in touch with it again.

The story lightly deals with the somber topic of death, making it funny instead of shocking, as other campaigns around the theme did for so long. This new approach was as unique as it was sharable because it is so original you definitely want your mates to see it. 

2-Different platforms

The video was not the whole campaign; in fact, it’s just a relatively tiny part of it, considering that Dumb Ways to Die Success can be attributed to the different platforms used to share it. Each media was explored to its fullest to obtain the greatest possible outcome.

Let’s take a look at what could be shared and where: The song, video, Tumblr page (yes, there’s that too), billboards, apps, website, a children’s book. All of them were optimized to get the narrative going and keep it interesting. The fact that the content could be (and was) consumed by so many different audiences made it very sharable.

3- Going viral

Although for something to go viral, it must count on at least a bit of luck, some things make it easier to happen, such as: targeting a wide audience, betting on a natural approach, using the proper channels at the right time, getting the users attention, and making the content relevant. Of course, the creators checked all the boxes, and the magic happened.

The team wanted to reach a younger audience, and their attention was entirely on their phones. It must be interesting to worldwide audiences for something to go viral, and you do that by acting global. And how the McCann team did that will make you re-think all your marketing campaigns.

4- The agency’s team

Their work was precise and assertive. First, they choose a content model instead of an advertising one, which is, obviously, much more interesting. All the choices were carefully made to turn the content as global as possible.

Want proof? The song’s vocalist Emily Lubitz was chosen because her voice would also be appealing to other markets, such as the UK. Also, there are references to the American culture in the lyrics, such as psycho killers, rattlesnakes, and grizzly bears. It doesn’t sound like luck anymore, does it?

5-Interactional content

There’s another great move: making it possible for people to interact with the content, creating a tailored experience for each viewer. People were encouraged to develop and share a remix of the content. Later, other options, such as the app, were designed to facilitate the interaction.

People don’t want to hear about others; they want it to be about themselves, so once you make it happen, their attention will be guaranteed. The audience can navigate through different platforms, interacting with the content in many ways and creating their own experience based on their preferences.

6- The power of making a question

The first moments of the video create a question to be answered later. The question is not expressed directly, but it is there: the clear blue sky turns into an animated character with hair on fire, running to the viewers’ encounter. Naturally, we tend to ask: why? During the video, the main question we access is ‘why are these things happening?’ It appeals to our sense of curiosity, and from now on, we are focused on getting the answer.

7- The answer as a call to action

At the end of the video, we get a clear answer. You immediately get your answers when you hear the call to action ‘be safe around trains’. All that happened were representations of dumb ways to die, on which the dumbest is being hit by a train. So now you know what to do because they told you so: Be safe around trains. And that guarantees complete campaign success.

So, Dumb Ways to Die success can be attributed to many factors that contributed to the campaign impacting so many people for so long. But, the brilliant work of McCann’s team is definitely on the top of the list. A professional I admire, Daniel Schwart, once said in an interview that “you have to work really hard to get yourself in the position to get lucky.” And that fits perfectly in the situation. So, let’s keep watching this unique agency work and, hopefully, keep learning from it.

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