MTR highlights escalator safety with Maruko-themed campaign

MTR Corporation has partnered with creative agency Narrow Door to launch a creative campaign with the theme of a Japanese manga series Chibi Maruko Chan (櫻桃小丸子) to promote escalator safety.

Also known as “MTR Escalator Safety 2023”, the year-long campaign will be running from July 2023 until July 2024. 

In a conversation with MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, Terry Tsang, director at Narrow Door said that the campaign is inspired by the similarities between HongKongers and Chan, "They both share a laid-back attitude and enjoy playing things safe, taking less risk on life occasions," he added.

Leveraging Chan's interesting “play safe” philosophy, Tsang said the campaign invited her as the safety ambassador of MTR to educate on safety awareness when using escalators by observing the common behaviours of Hong Kong people in the form of a typical Japanese variety show.

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"This allows the audience to get the message in a light, easy and funny way during their commute time, and to learn to play and stay safe," he said. The campaign also aims to further strengthen Hong Kong’s safety-first culture, enhance MTR’s caring image, reduce incident numbers and create market noise with gimmicky execution.

Within the video ad, Chan is seen to be observing the behaviour of passengers during escalator journeys with her family and friends, and they join hands to remind the public to be careful when taking escalators and stay safe. Apart from the YouTube video, Chan and other characters will be featured in station posters and advertising videos, they will also providing voiceovers for public announcements at the stations. Additionally, manga style posts will be published on MTR's Facebook and Instagram page.

Commenting on the campaign, Karen Woo, general manger, branding and communication, MTR Corporation, said: “We believe that this campaign will not only enhance safety awareness amongst our passengers, but also make their commuting experience more enjoyable.” 

Meanwhile, Tsang said: “Escalator safety might sound like common sense. Yet, it’s not uncommon to find passengers not observing the right way to use an escalator such as carrying bulky luggage or suffering injuries from running up and down the escalator. As passengers don’t like to be told to behave properly,  we adopted a humorous and dramatised approach to ‘edutain’ the audiences."

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