our workNetwork Rail / Big Manny influencer campaign
Network Rail and the British Transport police have a new rail safety expert – and he’s a bare big deal, bruv… We’ve been working with the team behind You Vs Train to find new ways to change behaviours among hard to reach audiences since 2020. Our latest campaign saw us team up with influencer Big Manny to use a bit of roadman science to educate millions of teenagers and young adults on the deadly risks of trespassing.
443,086 interactions
The overwhelming majority of which were positive…
Up to 44% reduction in child trespass
7% reduction nationwide, and 44% in trespass hotspot areas.
Over 4 million individuals reached
With strong correlation between Manny’s audience, and at risk groups
It’s always about the positive impact…
Trespass on the railway is a mad big problem, innit fam?
If you haven’t already come across him, Emanuel Wallace (aka Big Manny) is a 24-year-old science-first content creator and music artist from Dagenham making the periodic table and Bunsen burners cool again.
Leaning on his master’s degree in biomedical science, East Londoner Manny uses his social media channels to explain scientific concepts, conducting experiments narrated by a roadman persona to tap into Gen-Z audiences.
Speaking our audience’s language
Teenagers are lectured by grown-ups all day at school, then the nagging carries on when they get home at night. They don’t want to listen to adults. They want to sit on their phones catching up their favourite influencers - like Big Manny...
In a series of three videos we commissioned, Manny demonstrated the science behind how electricity can jump 3m from overhead cables, used a slice of meat to show how the 3rd rail can literally cook you alive, and used his very own train set to explain how sound waves work and why, therefore, you can’t hear a high-speed train coming. All delivered, of course, in his trademark deadpan persona.
Big Manny vs. 25,000 volts
Using a Van de Graaff generator to show how electricity from overhead lines can arc and jump to you from a distance.
Big Manny vs. the third rail
Burning a piece of meat with a car battery, to viscerally demonstrate the dangers of the third rail.
Big Manny vs. 400 tonnes
Using a train set to demonstrate how the doppler effect
Behaviour…? Changed.
The campaign delivered an extremely impressive 5% decrease in the number of trespass incidents across the whole rail network during the campaign period (when compared to last year) - impressive given this was an entirely organic influencer campaign. The number of recorded incidents involving children/young people decreased by 7% nationally.
There was a 22% decrease in recorded incidents across the trespass campaign priority locations (aka “hotspots”) during the campaign period, with the number of incidents involving children in hotspot areas decreasing by an impressive 44%.
Reach and interactions to be proud of
The videos were a huge success for everyone involved. Network Rail and the British Transport Police achieved seriously impressive penetration into a hard-to-reach audience via a respected, peer-to-peer voice, with almost all comments being overwhelmingly supportive of their mission. Across his channels, Big Manny earned up to 543 % more eyeballs, compared to the average reach of his recent reels.
Instagram
Individual accounts reached: 3,165,810
Views: 4,280,000
Likes: 286,000
Comments: 2,190
Saves: 16,886
Replays: 1,065,475
TikTok
Individual accounts reached: 1,168,000
Views: 1,359,700
Likes: 128,100
Comments: 1,194
Saves: 6,871
Forwards: 1,845