MTR uses wild kids' imaginations in campaign for new rail link

The campaign features trains shaped like a gigantic dragonfly, a whale, a giraffe and even an armadillo roaming around Diamond Hill.

Hong Kong independent agency TwoHundred has been working on the MTR’s creative account since its inception in 2008. This latest campaign aims to explain the benefits of the coming Shatin-Central Link project, which will take time to complete, Christine Pong, the agency’s creative partner, explained to Campaign Asia-Pacific.

The Shatin-Central line includes new connections between Tai Wai and Hung Hom and between Hung Hom and Admiralty, which will be completed in 2018 and 2020, respectively.

Instead of a traditional, factual approach, she said, the agency decided to adopt a new approach to explain to the public the progress on the various projects. "We wanted to engage teenagers to express their wishes through their imagination and fantasy by using a lot of animation and computer-generated graphics to visualise how they would like to travel on the MTR in the future and in a more entertaining way," Pong said. “Lots of the MTR ad campaigns are very people-oriented, and this is the first time that we have used teenagers as the main characters to bring out their youthful and forward-thinking images for the campaign.”

Hence in the TVC there are images of whales, dragonflies, robots and even an armadillo, many of which remind viewers of the Transformers or elabroate contraptions in Hayao Miyazaki's (宮崎 駿)’animated films.

The campaign includes TVCs in both Chinese and English, outdoor TV in Times Square,  MTR station posters, newspaper advertorials and a Facebook game. It will run for four weeks starting yesterday.

“We had a lot of fun working on this campaign even though we spent lots of weekends shooting, as the teenagers could only work weekends,” Pong said.

CREDITS

Creative agency: TWOHUNDRED LIMITED
Strategy and creative directors:   Christine Pong, Derek Wong, O'Poon
Art directors: O'Poon, Eunice Lui, Sherrie Poon
Copywriters: Derek Wong, Iker Lin
Account management: Eric Leung, Summer Kwan
Film director: Man Chung @ Film Factory
CG animation: Many Many Creations
Post production: Playground
Music production: Hapchek