After many attempts to curb excessive honking on Mumbai’s roads, Mumbai Police did what fines couldn’t - change behaviour with a dash of humour. They turned traffic signals into Punishing Signals, with instant results. Thanks to the PR strategy, it became the most Liked & Shared and #1 Indian topic. Also reached 35 countries via 1000+ news mentions. All, at zero media spend.

With a PR approach that made it viral, it furthered the behaviour change it sought to affect in India, resonated with the world, and took Mumbai Police’s approval rating to an all-time high.

Situation:

Mumbai has 1675 vehicles/km. Being a fast-paced city, motorists are in a tearing hurry. Resulting in traffic jams and indiscipline. Like excessive honking. Vehicle owners even fit extra loud horns than standard to navigate through teeming traffic. But law enforcement couldn’t enforce enough, with just 1293 people booked in the last 10 years. Their awareness campaigns like “No Honking Day”, “HornVrat” and “Horn Not OK Please” and the efforts of the environmental NGO, the Awaaz Foundation, couldn’t cut through. In the last decade, while vehicles on the road have increased, so has honking – 18 million times/hour.

Brief & Objective:

70% of noise pollution on roads still happens due to indiscriminate honking. Affecting citizens’ physical and mental health. After many attempts to curb it, the Mumbai Police's brief: A creative solution (our own idea) for instant results on the road and maximum awareness among citizenry.

70% of the noise pollution on Mumbai’s roads happens due to excessive honking. Especially at the traffic signals. The creative solution was to change this civic behaviour but with an unexpected dash of humour from one of India’s biggest law enforcement agencies - the Mumbai Police. Instead of punishing the perps themselves, they had the traffic signals become Punishing Signals. If honking at a ‘red’ signal crossed 85 decibels (dangerous), the countdown timer resets. Making the impatient motorists wait longer. As they wait, interactive OOH displays linked to the signal push LIVE messages, highlighting their bad behaviour with a wink and a smile. Thus making the motorists honk responsibly for the signal to turn green.

The Punishing Signal activation resulted in localised behaviour change at select Mumbai signals with a dash of humour and humanity. The key message of “honk more, wait more” complemented the activation well to achieve that.

The PR strategy was to take this message to a larger group of Mumbai’s citizens in order to boost awareness, behaviour change, and impact.

So the key focus of the PR mix was to cut an interesting film of the whole activation, maintaining the same tone of humour. It was achieved by using the typical funny-sounding delivery of a Mumbai traffic cop for the narration; with subtitles in English (and later in regional languages) for wider comprehension. All PR activity & engagement was then channelised to have this film garner maximum eyeballs and mileage, organically.

The PR strategy was executed on 31 Jan 2020. The Punishing Signal film was shared on Mumbai Police’s official Twitter (5 Million followers). Then, a Press Release package was designed containing the film, behind-the-scene pics, news-bites from Mumbai’s Police & Traffic Commissioners. It was shared with the ‘city news’ beat of Mumbai’s top media publications. Gauging a positive response quickly, the package was sent to select media houses across India - focussing on the metros that experienced indiscriminate honking, daily. Also sent to news wires for wider reach.

Parallelly, select public figures (with big follower count and frequent association with Mumbai Police’s initiatives) were engaged to tweet the film or retweet the original post, pro bono.

Subsequent social media buzz across the nation and coverage by the foreign press was organic. Thereby amplifying the PR efforts till 29 Feb 2020. All, at zero media spend.

Mumbai Police assessed the average honking dBs at the Punishing Signals a week before and a month after roll-out and found a 32% dip. On 5th Feb 2020, P Ashok (Mumbai Police) announced on CNN a further roll-out in 10 locations, and then to the entire traffic system. The administration of 3 other Indian cities announced similar plans. On 1st Feb 2020, The Times of India (ToI) reported KTR Rao (Telangana State Minister) and Police Heads announcing a roll-out in Hyderabad city, identifying 16 locations. On 2nd Feb 2020, B Rao (City Commissioner) announced on ToI a roll-out in Bengaluru city. On 15th Feb 2020, District Collector LK Jatav announced a roll-out in Indore city, so it becomes “Silent City” (ToI).

While the solution led to instant results, its “film” tweeted by Mumbai Police led to nationwide chatter. With 6.6 Billion Impressions, it became the Most Liked & Shared and the #1 Indian topic, all social media taken. International news outlets in over 35 countries like The New York Times, The Guardian, CNN etc. covered it in over 1000 articles. All, at zero media spend. Mumbai Police’s approval rating reached an all-time high.