Oliver UK

Client: The Guardian
Product: Today in Focus
Title: Don't Read This Poster
Media: Tube Card Panel
Country: United Kingdom
Date Of Campaign: April 2019

Background: We were briefed to create an advert for London Underground Tube Car Panels. We needed to raise awareness of The Guardian’s new daily podcast, Today in Focus directly to our target market, commuters in a contextual manner. We needed to stand out in a crowded marketplace and let the public, especially our readers, know that firstly, The Guardian have a podcast. And secondly, that Today in Focus was The Guardian’s flagship daily podcast. The primary aim was to raise awareness and secondarily to drive our audience to subscribe and listen daily.

Idea: A poster that is meant to be listened to, not read.The poster features audio transcripts from two recent podcast episodes on climate change and Brexit, with large font overlapping the text to direct attention to a call to action: "Don’t read this poster. Listen to it". The design plays on the setting of a Tube carriage and the benefits of listening on the move. We wanted to let tube commuters know that instead of gawping at social media, avoiding eye contact with the person opposite them, or — God forbid — staring blankly at ads, they could listen to Today in Focus and discover ‘The story behind the headlines.’

Results: Since campaign launch, we have beaten initial targets of 40,000 listeners by over 100%, with Today in Focus gaining 100,000 listeners per episode of which over 60% are subscribers.