#DumbWaysToDie

Agency: McCann/Melbourne
ECD: John Mescall
CW: John Mescall
AD: Pat Baron
Animation: Julian Frost
Music: Ollie McGill
Digital Team: Huey Groves, Christian Stocker

In 2012 Melbourne Metro needed to promote rail safety in a campaign that had to resonate with their rail users in a video marketing campaign. McCann, Metro's agency, decided to go down the route of entertainment, writing some hilarious lyrics to a song about all the dumb ways to die to underline the message that you need to be safe around trains because one of the dumbest ways to die is to get hit by one.

The resulting song, recorded by Tangerine Kitty, launched via iTunes, radio, YouTube and more. Within 24 hours of its launch in November 2012, the “Dumb Ways to Die” song reached the top 10 chart of iTunes. But it was the YouTube video that really sealed this campaign’s fate. It was viewed 2.5 million times within 48 hours and 4.7 million times within 72 hours. Within two weeks, the video had been viewed 30 million times. As of September 2018, the video has received over 170 million views.

“Dumb Ways to Die” was named the best campaign of the decade at the 2018 Asia-Pacific Tambuli Awards. And for good reason. What started off as a lighthearted message about staying safe around Melbourne, Australia’s commuter system trains has morphed into a entertainment property with 200 million app downloads, a quarter of billion video views, and 3 billion unique game plays.