Case Study: How Western Railway leveraged web series references for COVID-19 PSA content

With multiple web series references, Western Railway was able to drive home PSA messages to their young target audiences on social media.

Conversing in pop culture references might have been a far-fetched idea for anyone working at the PSA creation team at a government office ten years ago. However, things have changed greatly in the last few years, with several organizations upping their game in a bid to reach more and more young people on social media. Western Railway is among them and their latest effort includes web series references moulded into PSA content. They posted these creatives on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Koo — delighting their followers.

Brand Introduction 

The Western Railway is one of the 18 zones of Indian Railways, and is among the busiest railway networks in India. The railway zone serves parts of Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. It comprises of six railway divisions: Mumbai, Vadodra, Ahmedabad, Ratlam, Rajkot and Bhavnagar. It zone also includes part of the Mumbai Railway Suburban Network — the Western Line, which extends from Churchgate to Dahanu Road. 

Agency

Ventures Advertising Private Limited

Summary

With a raging pandemic and a lockdown underway, most of the people, including regular Western Railway commuters and passengers have found solace in video streaming platforms. These platforms are putting their best foot forward to entertain the audiences, each releasing several web series, adding to the popular culture references and conversations around them. For this campaign, several such references were picked to use web series as a vehicle to convey COVID-19 guidelines and deliver this PSA content for people at large.

Problem Statement/Objective 

To spread awareness about COVID-19 health precautions and rules by creating quirky and witty content on social media platforms.

Brief

The thought and tonality of each creative had to be designed keeping in mind the synchronisation between the brand and viewers, striking the right chord. Web series can play a huge impact on the people and are thus useful to help COVID-19 rules and precautions reach audiences better.

Creative Idea 

Web series runs on multiple digital platforms. When it comes to intellectual video content, webseries have been playing a significant role in youth. Web series are the go-to source of thought-provoking entertainment for millennial.

Challenges

Creating awareness among people to follow appropriate behaviour while braving the COVID-19 pandemic. Reducing vaccine hesitancy and raise awareness about the benefits of vaccination as a defence against COVID-19.

Execution 

Creatives were posted across all platforms under the hashtag #TicketToSuraksha. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Koo were used to execute the campaign.

Also Read: Western Railway’s not so ‘sarkaari’ social media strategy

Results

"As per the GOI's directive of spreading awareness about COVID-19, we embarked on the journey of engaging with our audience with various innovative campaigns. The team came up with the thought of engaging with the audience via various famous movies and shows on OTT platforms, said Sumit Thakur, Chief Public Relations Officer, Western Railway.

"As per the objective, we thought of reaching out to the audience in the language they understand. In the last one and a half years, OTT content has been consumed by one and all. Thus, we decided to engage the users on WR's social media platforms with the famous shows on various OTT platforms," said Vitesh Shah, CEO, Ventures Advertising.

The campaign garnered 125K organic reach across all social media platforms, receiving an engagement rate of 5.95%. It helped the central government organisation put across COVID-19 guidelines, disguised as quirky content, helping Western Railway extend its brand affinity and salience among existing and potential young railway users.