Dumb Ways to Die
Metro Trains Melbourne2012
Dumb Ways to Die is a 2012 animated music video and integrated safety campaign for Metro Trains Melbourne, created by McCann, Melbourne.
The line
Be safe around trains.
Why it works
A rail-safety message delivered as an earworm about adorable beans dying horribly. Instead of blood-on-the-tracks shock tactics, McCann Melbourne wrote a genuinely catchy pop song cataloguing dumb deaths — selling both kidneys, poking a grizzly bear — with train accidents as the dumbest of all. Launched November 16, 2012, the song hit the iTunes top ten within 24 hours, the video amassed hundreds of millions of views, and 127 million people pledged to be safer around trains. At Cannes 2013 it won a record five Grand Prix and became the most awarded campaign in the festival's history. It is studied for charm as a delivery system for grim messages — entertainment first, lesson smuggled in — and as the most complete transmedia PSA ever built: song, video, game, and station posters all one idea.
Techniques
- Jingles and music A genuinely catchy pop song lists a string of dumb deaths, with train accidents saved as the dumbest, so the safety message sticks as an earworm.
- Humour Adorable animated beans dying in absurd ways, from selling both kidneys to poking a grizzly bear, smuggle a grim rail-safety lesson inside comedy.
Sources · 3
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