With train incidents and collisions on the rise, KiwiRail needed to find a new way to get through to people. Following pandemic restrictions, listening to yet another government safety message had little appeal. The message had to be radically different and come from real people to not only get attention, but to get safe behaviours to become routine.

The campaign needed to reach all New Zealanders who walk, cycle or drive over train tracks. With an audience so broad, KiwiRail's insight needed an appeal just as broad – so we tapped into something that, surprisingly, 90% of people admit to having: a superstition. Even you may be familiar with not jinxing a piece of work by hoping it'll do well in an award show.

Ultimately, our goal was simple – to reduce collisions and incidents by reminding people of the need to always look left and right at level crossings.

To get attention from the target audience, we didn’t create an ad – we created a superstition.

The first superstition to actually save lives.

By getting people to blow to the left and right before they crossed train tracks, the superstition prompted them to look both ways without even realising it.

But for the superstition to catch on, it needed to look and feel like it already existed. So we embedded it within existing content online before getting a range of targeted content creators to start talking about superstitions and generating PR – with The Rail Ritual simply appearing amidst their other content.

Finally, when the superstition looked like it'd already been around for years, KiwiRail re-shared content, sharing it throughout Rail Safety Week. This unusual approach to promoting a Rail Safety Week message was an instant hook for news outlets – earning even more attention from our target audience.

Train schedules are highly irregular, meaning incidents happen at irregular intervals as well – so our target audience became just about everyone in the country at just about any time.

After years of serious warnings and safety messages with ailing results, KiwiRail needed something more positive yet powerful to get people to look both ways before they crossed train tracks. And a new superstition proved just the vehicle to prompt behaviour change in a light hearted yet compelling way – because people might not look left and right for their own safety but they will to avoid bad luck.

The superstition was then embedded within existing content online to make it look as if it had been around for years. It was then referenced in social influencer content, which KiwiRail leveraged during Rail Safety Week, generating more attention and conversation.

Months before the campaign launched in Rail Safety Week, we inserted mentions of the superstition across the internet, placing it everywhere from within existing and new conversations on social platforms and forums to blogs and Wikipedia.

Once its background was established online, we were ready to start larger conversations about the ritual, working with radio hosts, comedians, micro influencers and sports stars to begin talking about the superstition on social media. Again, the superstition needed to appear like part of their natural conversations, so it was placed within content that was typical of their other work.

Finally, the superstition was established and ready for KiwiRail to leverage social and growing PR, endorsing it in Rail Safety Week as a behaviour that not only gave you good luck, but also prompted you to look both ways before crossing train tracks.

Then the creatives crossed their fingers till the winners were announced.

Campaign impressions increased by 157% from the year prior with 6.17m impressions across all platforms. Social alone generated 3.7m impressions, 7,172 clicks and 1.74m unique users from just $21,480 NZD spend. Within influencers, unique reach was 87.2K with 279.2K impressions and an engagement rate well above industry standard.

Earned media generated 1,555,840 audience reach daily. Reach increased by 330% and clicks on KiwiRail content increased by 49%, spreading the safety message to all kinds of New Zealanders.

Even government officials got behind the campaign, appearing on national television demonstrating the superstition, creating huge consumer awareness with an additional 1.5m earned views.

Most importantly, as at 28 March 2023, zero pedestrians have died at level crossings since the campaign and total year on year incidents have decreased by 53%.