How Marketing was used to Reduce the Rate of Accidents In Australia

In 2012, there was a high recording of railway accidents in Australia, due to young people not reading safety instructions around the rail. It became a critical problem and something had to be done urgently.

Metro Trains Melbourne, one of the largest train networks in Australia, decided to create a cartoon video with a song titled Dumb Ways to Die. The cartoon showed a series of characters dying in fictional ways and ended with 3 characters dying in preventable train accidents.

This campaign was launched on Youtube, and within 48 hours it was viewed 2.5 million times and 4.7 million times within 72 hours. In 2 weeks, the video reached 30 million views, surpassing the total population of Australia.

A Tumblr page was also created alongside the campaign to promote safety awareness by sharing GIFs of the cartoon characters. Many radio stations also helped in promoting the song for free. The ripple effect of the campaign was massive.

Dumb Ways To Die stayed on the front page of Reddit for 2 days, and also ranked No. 1 on the music chart in more than 20 countries. In less than a month, it became the Internet's Most Shared Video in 2012.

A website was also created to get people to pledge to be safe around trains and nearly 1 million people took the pledge. Out-Of-Home advertising, a book, and a game were also created to get people to pledge.

Over 200 covers and parodies were made and shared, and schools adopted it and used it as a tool to teach kids about public safety. Dumb Ways To Die became the most shared public service campaign in history, and Metro recorded a 21% decline in railway accidents compared to the previous year.

It is recorded as the 3rd most viral campaign of all time.