
Don't read this poster
The Guardian
Issue 51 | June 2019
Agency
OLIVER
Creative Team
Creative Director, OLIVER: Sam Jacobs Art Director, OLIVER: Liam Smith Copywriter, OLIVER: Octavia Welby
Production Team
Account Lead, OLIVER: Izabela Pawlowska Producer: Ida Ghotaslo
Other Credits
Planner: Dan Perry, OLIVER Marketing lead, The Guardian: Robbie George Head of Brand and Awareness, The Guardian: Kate Davies Media agency: PHD
Date
April 2019
Background
The brief was to create an advert for London Underground Tube Car Panels. The challenge was to raise awareness of The Guardian’s new daily podcast, Today in Focus directly to the target market, commuters in a contextual manner. The task was to stand out in a crowded marketplace and let the public, especially their readers, know that firstly, The Guardian have a podcast. And secondly, that Today in Focus was The Guardian’s flagship daily podcast. The primary aim was to raise awareness and secondarily to drive the audience to subscribe and listen daily.
Idea
A poster that is meant to be listened to, not read. The poster features audio transcripts from two recent podcast episodes on climate change and Brexit, with large font overlapping the text to direct attention to a call to action: "Don’t read this poster. Listen to it". The design plays on the setting of a Tube carriage and the benefits of listening on the move. They wanted to let tube commuters know that instead of gawping at social media, avoiding eye contact with the person opposite them, or — God forbid — staring blankly at ads, they could listen to Today in Focus and discover ‘The story behind the headlines.’
Results
Since campaign launch, initial targets of 40,000 listeners have been beaten by over 100%, with Today in Focus gaining 100,000 listeners per episode of which over 60% are subscribers.