The Brief

To inform, educate and affect a behavioural change in commuters of the Mumbai suburban rail network, to make them more self aware and alert to the rapid rise in pickpockets.

Creative Execution

The relevance of the creative execution is rooted in human behaviour. We tend to resist almost every change, be it in thought or action unless we feel it to be absolutely necessary. In our context for instance, no amount of 'advertising' would have convinced people to change their ways and take more care while commuting, unless of course, they were forced to accept how easy it is for them to fall victim to pickpockets

Describe the creative solution to the brief/objective.

Our creative idea was to hire sleight-of-hand professionals to back pocket commuters (i.e. discreetly drop something in commuters' pockets instead of picking it). The item dropped was a detailed pocket safety guide that gave comprehensive information on how pickpockets operate and tips to safeguard against them. We believed this to be a highly effective solution as it demonstrated in real time the ease with which someone could get into people's pockets without them having a clue. The impact was intended to shake commuters out of it-couldn't-happen-to-me attitude and take action.

Results

The initial desired result of generating word-of-mouth among commuters was almost instantaneous. Both on ground and online buzz turned the sleight-of-hand professionals into minor stars. Blog challenges spread with a call to 'catch' the back pockets. And catch they did. The first 'catch' was made on April 2, 2009, just seven days into the campaign. By end of day 12, 3 out of 6 were caught. The back pockets then interacted with commuters about the initiative affecting further behavioural change. Within a month of the campaign, registered cases fell by over 40%.