Rhinos on skateboards! Grabbing attention with your message

In the visual clutter that is our world,  the simple poster ad for Yarra trams immediately grabbed my attention.  If you live in Melbourne, you have probably seen it .  The logo and poster campaign use a silhouetted rhino on a skateboard as a public safety message. The campaign was designed to prevent pedestrians (distracted by mobile phones etc) from being hit by trams.  But it’s different from your conventional public safety messages.

The insight that a tram weighs the same as a herd of rhinos allowed for an original delivery of the message. It also targets 18 – 30 year olds the demographic most commonly hit  by trams but who do not respond to authoritarian messages.

The purpose and the target audience explains the quirky campaign.  Compare this public safety message with a more conventional one from overseas on the same issue.   This  more conventional poster might work but it wouldn’t have hooked me enough to read the rest.  And that’s the first step – you have to be able to cut through the clutter and grab your audience’s attention.

But we will know that the rhino campaign has really worked when a young person approaches another person at a tram stop and says…

“Can you tell me when the next rhino is ?”

Have you got any examples of attention grabbing messages?  Please comment.