How to Sell to Australia

Successful advertising campaigns often feature endearing characters and have smart yet effective slogans with clear simple messages. Yellow Pages gave us an ad about lodging ads with ‘Not Happy Jan’. Tourism Australia invited the world down under with Paul Hogan slipping us all another shrimp on the barbie. And Metro Trains encouraged common sense through delightfully dumb animated beans in their wildly successful 'Dumb Ways to Die' campaign.

In 2012, Metro Trains endeavoured to create a public service campaign to promote the importance of rail safety, but they did not want to use shock tactics, or create a deeply earnest or overly serious message that risked being boring or worse, ignored by the public. So, they turned to their advertising agency, McCann Melbourne, for a solution. Together with co-creators John Mescall and Pat Baron, and McCann’s Group Account Director Adrian Mills, they boiled it all down to one clear point: “Trains travel in a straight line. If you get hit by one, you’ve probably done something pretty silly, which makes getting hit by a train one of the dumbest ways to die.” With the combination of humour, a catchy song with hilarious lyrics by John Mescall and music composed by Oliver McGill, and a cast of animated characters, the resulting PSA would be anything but boring, making itself heard across the globe and becoming a successful brand in its own right. With a plethora of international success, the campaign has become the most awarded advertising campaign in history and includes 28 Cannes Lions.

Animated by Julian Frost and produced by Cinnamon Darvall, DWTD follows the impulsive, gleeful, naive and very silly characters of Numpty, Hapless, Pillock, Dippy, Dummkopf, Dimwit, Stupe, Lax, Clod, Doomed, Numskull, Bungle, Mishap, Dunce, Calamity, Ninny, Botch, Doofus, Stumble, Bonehead and Putz as they fatally injured themselves in ridiculous situations. Proving that most behaviours that lead to accidents are in fact avoidable, DWTD was designed to hold up a mirror to our own dumb behaviour, encouraging us all to be a little safer. To aid in spreading the message, Tangerine Kitty was brought in to record the song which was launched via iTunes, YouTube and radio. Within 48 hours, it had been viewed 2.5 million times. The song would soon chart on iTunes in 28 countries, even toppling Rihanna for the top spot.

The success of the video campaign led to an expansion across posters and billboards, children’s books, a dedicated website and an app, ultimately creating a multiplatform brand which cut through the market. The game app alone has since had 375 million downloads and gives players the opportunity to collect all the bean characters, gain high scores and unlock the music video that started it all. Aiming to target young people, who consume digital media through broad channels, Metro and McCann Melbourne turned a serious message into entertainment and branded content, that was sharable and very much sought, gifting Australia and the world with twenty-one new treasured characters.

- Curator Chelsey O'Brien

Find out more

Dumb Ways to Die website

Download Dumb Ways to Die

Dumb Ways to Die iOS
Dumb Ways to Die Android
Dumb Ways to Die 2: The Games iOS
Dumb Ways to Die 2: The Games Android