Harrison's Story

Client: Network Rail

Trespassing on the railway leads to an average of 20 entirely avoidable deaths each year – including, tragically, the death of funny, football-mad, 11-year old Harrison Ballantyne. In 2017 Harrison was out playing with his friends when he was killed by 25,000 volts of electricity at a privately owned rail freight depot. We worked with Network Rail, the British Transport Police, industry partners and Harrison’s parents to tell his story in a powerful, moving film that reduced child trespass incidents by 53%, in a second run of the campaign launched in 2022. Every hour of every day, someone puts their life on the line around the railway, either because they're unaware of the risks that the network presents, or because they’re over-confident in their abilities to avoid them. Our creative strategy was to reinforce the unpredictable nature of the railway using unexpected storytelling techniques, in a film carefully constructed to be memorable using a number of behavioural biases and heuristics. It’s extraordinarily difficult not to listen to a sunny, lively 11-year-old boy speaking directly to us about how he didn’t expect to die today. We used the charm of Harrison himself to draw people into our film, and kept them there - the paid YouTube VTR was 47% (against 25% benchmark). The media agency now recommend to run the longer ads for their incredible engagement rates. We’re extremely proud of this work, proud that we did Harrison justice, and proud of the impact it’s had. This one’s for you, Harrison.