In the Heads Up campaign for Slovak Rail (ZSSK), we focused on the post-holiday period. This period is associated with the return to working life and the everyday problems associated with commuting by car. Life is sad if you get stuck in traffic every morning and there is nothing you can do behind the wheel. So in cooperation with the band S Hudbou Vesmírnou, we tried to cheer up every unhappy driver spending mornings and late afternoons in traffic by creating a positive and happy song.

In the first part of the song “Heads Up”, which, together with the video became the backbone of the campaign, we tried to highlight the problems with travelling by car. In the second part, we wanted to transform the negative experience of time spent in endless traffic jams into a positive one using an impactful message: HEADS UP, WE’RE GOING BY TRAIN!

The members of the band S Hudbou Vesmírnou became the central theme of this campaign’s visuals and together with the headline “Overtake the traffic jams and forget the stress of parking” demonstrated the difference between travelling by car and train. To reach as many potential travellers as possible, we communicated the campaign through various media and channels, especially in Western, Central and Eastern Slovakia. This means that we had to identify and adapt to all the changes in the rail transport timetable as required. This resulted in 30 different versions of leaflets and around 60 different versions of text for OOH and banners.

As if that was not enough, we prepared radio adverts featuring tactical messages. These three versions of adverts were linked by means of local targeting for the morning and afternoon traffic situation and offered solutions in specific regions.

In addition, we prepared two special billboards. One had unusually long text placed on a billboard where a traffic jam was highly likely so that drivers had enough time to read it.

And the second one, the idea and text of which were adapted to a specific location where we used a clever play on words to focus attention on the amount of time spent in a traffic jam.

The Waze traffic app became perhaps the most interesting communication channel, where we used the “zero speed takeover” format. The app allowed us to reach out to drivers when their attention is at its peak – when sitting in traffic. When drivers stopped a pop-up message appeared to them, saying: “Sitting in traffic again? Heads up, we’re going by train! Check out what’s new at ZSSK.“

With the help of this campaign, we managed to raise awareness of changes in the rail transport timetable in all locations to which the changes apply and to highlight a clear message that time spent travelling can be used in better ways.