Considerate Behaviour
Transport for London
Issue 7 | July 2008
Agency
M&C Saatchi London
Creative Team
Graham Fink – Creative Director;Mark Goodwin – Deputy Creative Director;Will Bates – Art Director;Curtis Brittles – Copywriter
Production Team
Tomboy Films - Production Company; Mike Figgis - Director; Frances Silor - Producer; Henry Braham - DOP; Arlen Figgis - Editor; Hackenbacker - Sound; Framestore - Post Production; Estella Alvares - Agency Producer
Other Credits
Anna Donaghey – Planner;Sadie Clark – Account Director
Date
February 2008
Background
When travelling on public transport, our actions have a greater impact on those around us than we might imagine. The task was to promote awareness of this fact along with a level of behaviour on public transport that reduces friction on board and improves perceptions of the environment. This meant making people question the appropriateness of their behaviour whilst travelling around London.
Idea
Most of us go about our days in a bubble, unaware of the impact that our personally acceptable and subconscious behaviour is having on those around us. Paradoxically, it is the times when we are around the most people that we are least conscious and considerate of other people’s feelings. Public transport is both very, very public and at the same time involves confined spaces where our actions are magnified through our proximity to others.
The proposition developed for the campaign was: our actions have a greater impact on other people than we might think. Launched with a three-minute experimental film, and encompassing press, poster, online and ambient activity, the agency created a set of characters called ‘The Londoners’ under the banner ‘Together for London’. This promoted the idea that if one person made a small positive change in behaviour, this would be passed on to others and snowball into a big difference for all Londoners. The use of neutral characters was intended to represent everyone without singling out a particular group, and their t-shirts communicate specific pledges (such as ‘I will offer my seat’ and ‘I won't play my music out loud’) in a positive way. The campaign voice is not that of Transport for London, but from Londoners to Londoners, reinforcing and uniting everyone behind a common goal.
Results
The campaign has received extensive TV and press coverage. Early tracking showed that after four weeks the campaign was recognised by nearly one in two Londoners. 93% of people claimed to have changed their behaviour as a result, the most common change being to let other people sit down. The online banners generated nearly 39,000 click throughs to the Together for London website – the highest amount ever for a TfL campaign.
Target Audience
Londoners using public transport, in particular teenagers between 13 and 17 and the under 35s.
Our Thoughts
This is a classic above-the-line agency learning to think vertically, using direct techniques to change behaviour. And at the heart of DM, that’s what it’s all about. Getting people to do things differently. As a daily user of London Transport, I must confess that I haven’t yet seen much evidence of the 93% of travellers who say they’ll stop eating smelly food/talking about their diarrhoea on their mobiles/playing gangsta rap at 70 decibels etc. actually doing so, but one lives in hope.