Dumb Ways To Die, the catchy public service announcement from Metro Trains in Melbourne and written by Cat Empire keyboardist Ollie McGill has won the Grand Prix in the public relations and direct marketing categories at the Cannes Lions festival, culminating an increbiel year for both the advert and the songwriter.
According to Mashable, the catchy song and video beat out contenders including Dove’s “Beauty Sketches” campaign and Oreo’s Blackout Tweet.
The video which accompanies the song ‘Dumb Ways To Die’, is an innocently charming cartoon video which sees cartoon characters meet their ends in a number of creative and colorful ways, even including several nasty train related incidents, coinciding with the hum worthy chorus: ”Dumb…ways to die”.
Released in November last year, the video quickly racked up an impressive 4 million views on Youtube in less than a week after reaching the front page of Reddit and going viral across social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. This week, the video is closing in on 50 million views.
The win at Cannes comes just a few months after it also cleaned up at the internet’s equivalent of the Academy Awards’ Oscars – the 17th Annual Webbys.
Dumb Ways To Die took both the Judges and People’s Voice wards in the Best Viral Online Film & Video category, the Webby and People’s Voice awards for Best Animation Film & Video and Best Viral Marketing Interactive Advertising & Media, and finally, the People’s Voice for Best Public Service & Activism (Social Content & Marketing).
Ollie McGill, the person responsible for the catchy music behind the award-winning campaign, told The Age last November of his surprise at the viral video’s popularity. “I’m kind of overwhelmed to tell you the truth,” he said. “I’m not a major songwriter and I’ve never dreamed of something I’ve written going viral like this. It’s gone beyond the desired effect, which was ambitious to start out with.”
“The initial tune came very quickly. I was up late one night after a party and picked up my guitar and out came the chorus. Then it was a matter of ”tweaking” late into the night over six weeks.” McGill added, emphasising that he wanted the song to work on its own artistic merit away from the advertisement.
“It is a song people can download and listen to without thinking ‘ad’,” says McGill.
There’s hope that news of the tracks quickfire success will generate more interest in enlisting quality songwriters for advert and promotional material, after several high profile cases of companies using artists’ music without permission were uncovered this past year.
As previously reported, Melbourne’s cult 80s band GOD’s seminal track “My Pal”, or guitar riffs and drum beats that sound remarkably similar, being used in the latest advertising campaign by Mercedes-Benz.
At the beginning of the year, John Butler’s well-recognisable riff from track “Zebra” was meticulously copied for a yoghurt advertisement that aired during the US Superbowl; an event which attracts over 100 million people in the US and where the limited advertising spots during the game cost around $3.5 million per 30 seconds.
Other Australian acts who were ripped-off included The Grates, whose 2008 single “Aw Yeah” was re-recorded for a New Zealand Weet-Bix ad. “They asked us if they could record a version of this song for the ad. We said no. Can’t believe they did it anyway, jerks,” the band tweeted.
