Northern Rail ‘All right?’
Helping Northern Rail show how simple interventions can save lives
Challenge
Around 4% of all suicides in the UK occur on the railway but the emotional, human and financial costs are disproportionately high as they can take place in view of passengers, station staff and drivers as well as resulting in considerable disruption to services.
Northern Rail and their partner agency, Juice Learning, approached us to help develop a poem they’d had written by Poet Laureate, Simon Armitage into a moving animation.
Client
Northern Rail
What we did
- Animation
- Poster design
- Digital asset creation
Approach
Armitage’s powerful words called upon members of the public to make a simple intervention if they were worried about someone near a rail line – by asking ‘All right?’ We felt it needed a dynamic but also warm treatment to do the poem and its sensitive topic justice.
We used a rotoscoping technique, creating an illustrated ink-spill style of animation giving the look and feel of watercolour painting.
Outcome
We delivered a moving 90-second advert which was shown on Northern Rail’s YouTube channel and Northern’s social channels to an audience totalling over 130,000 followers.
We also developed a number of digital assets for use on the on-board screens using the same look and feel, along with digital ad boards on platforms. Alongside this, we designed print posters using the same creative, featuring a QR code linking through to the film.