HERO’s leadership team, led by Creative Chairman Ben Lilley, includes the minds behind Dumb Ways to Die, which today remains the most awarded campaign in advertising history. Today, Ben is a frequent keynote speaker at global marketing conferences, where he shares the strategic secrets behind this viral blockbuster.

The campaign’s brilliance lies in its brutal simplicity: trains travel in a straight line. The insight was clear: to get hit by something so predictable, you have to do something remarkably silly. By reframing a sombre safety message through the lens of the world’s dumbest ways to die, the team turned a local PSA into a global cultural phenomenon.

Rather than a typically earnest public service announcement, the campaign adopted a mix of offbeat humour, a catchy tune, and a cast of hapless animated characters. It launched as an online music video under the slightly mad title Dumb Ways to Die. Within 24 hours of its release, the song hit the iTunes Top 10; just 48 hours later, it ranked number six in the singer/songwriter category on the global charts.

The video has now amassed over 500 million views, likes, and shares, making Dumb Ways to Die the most shared campaign of all time. Supported by a seamlessly integrated advertising strategy, it spawned a plethora of global parodies and spin-offs, earning unprecedented media attention for Metro Trains and its safety message.

The campaign also birthed a gaming app franchise. The original app climbed to number one in 22 countries—including Australia, the US, UK, and Canada—with over 103 million downloads and 7 billion unique plays recorded from every country in the world. Its sequel, Dumb Ways to Die 2: The Games, became the top-ranked app in over 90 countries, with more than 80 million people pledging to be safe around trains and nearly 4 billion game plays in just three months.

Today, Dumb Ways to Die remains the most awarded advertising campaign in history, boasting 28 Cannes Lions, including five Grand Prix.