Dump Ways to Die: Metro’s Hilarious Campaign That Saves Lives and Goes Viral!
“Dump Ways to Die” Ad by Metro Trains Melbourne (Metro)
In November 2012, Metro launched a highly humorous and memorable campaign across YouTube, other social media platforms, and mainstream media. Metro demonstrated its commitment to safety and saving lives in the above campaign. Strategically, Metro used a sense of humor to share its brand message of encouraging the public to prioritize safety by avoiding recklessness when around a train. As a result, this was effective in promoting brand memorability.
Metro used an amazing and extremely catchy cartoon in its campaign’s video clip. The campaign also featured upbeat lyrics exposing the stupid ways to die. Metro knew that no one liked speaking about death. Death is also a boring topic to many. As a result, Metro decided to use creativity to speak about death and the irrational ways people could die. From personal experience, Metro’s campaign was exceptionally effective in keeping the audience happy and, at the same time spreading the overarching message of avoiding reckless behaviors when around the trains.
Whether the Story in the Campaign Resonate with the Brand’s Overall Brand Story and Message
The ad’s “Dump Ways to Die” marketing campaign resonates with the overall brand message and story of providing seamless transport services to commuters. In addition, Metro presents itself as a customer-centric brand focused on enthralling its customers. One way to demonstrate customer-centrism is by valuing their safety and dignity. Metro values its customers’ safety and dignity by discouraging them from engaging in reckless behaviors. Creatively, Metro uses humor to demonstrate how recklessness around the trains can cause fatalities and accidents.
The “Dump Ways to Die” campaign message also fits Metro’s brand message of empowering its audience. Metro is a renowned brand for empowering its audience, including the public and customers, to live a fulfilling life. Metro’s brand story inspires the audience to adopt safety measures around the trains. Although Metro had not launched a safety campaign before, it advocated for saving lives, evidenced by safety instructions and station information. The ad message also resonated with the nature of the services delivered by Metro. As a rail transport provider, Metro knew it was rare to be hit and killed by a train. Only reckless behavior can cause train-related deaths. Hence, this informed the creative message and the title, “Dump Ways to Die,” to demonstrate the possibility of dying if people are reckless, although this can be rare.
The Aspect that Engaged Me from the Specific Piece of Content
I was deeply engaged by the content in the ad “Dump Ways to Die.” The campaign title was memorable and fascinating, hooking my attention. From my experience, Metro uses a creative and humorous way to capture the audience’s attention. Sensational music with a happy melody featured in the above campaign ad was also engaging. After listening to the music, I laughed and yearned to listen to the message. From such an experience, Metro got the message of exercising caution to avoid accidental deaths or injuries when a train is around you. The appealing colors and esthetics in the video campaign also increased audience engagement and encouraged people to develop strong positive reactions to the message.
Whether the Campaign Told a Story That Pulled me in or was it Trying to Push a message at Me
Metro was attempting to push a message on the importance of taking essential precautions around the train. In other words, Metro communicated to the public to avoid dump behaviors around trains. Metro also targeted the audience, including parents and kids, to prioritize safety around trains. Although it is rare to be hit by a train, accidents are fatal if people around are reckless. Therefore, this is why I poked fun at stupid ways to die caused by reckless behaviors.
Content Shareability
From personal experience, the campaign ad “Dump Ways to Die” was shareable. The target audience could share the campaign ad across various online platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and LinkedIn. Strategically, the content creators of the above campaign attached the sites- Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn that the audience could use in sharing. In addition, the audience could use the YouTube link of the above ad across various online media platforms, including WhatsApp, email, and other networking channels. Therefore, this proves the campaign ad was shareable.
Moreover, there is evidence that the users of “Dumb Ways to Die” was a shareable and instant hit, evidenced by many shares and likes across Facebook and Twitter. After Metro launched this campaign, it became an instant hit across different SNS (social networking services). In less than three months after the launch, “Dump Ways to Die” had reached over 3.2 shares and 100,000 tweets across Facebook and Twitter, respectively. As of 2013, “Dump Ways to Die” ranked the third most viral ad across social and mainstream media in history. In addition, this campaign’s sensational and upbeat music feature was exceptionally popular across different social media. Therefore, this proves that the above campaign was shareable.
