On my way back into Waterloo after a trip to Salisbury I saw a poster South West Trains had put up. Yellow background; picture in the bottom right of a stick man in the act of, or just after the act of, falling on his head. Big black letters:
What went through the mind of the person who slipped on the platform?
The floor.
Smaller letters:
Last year 77 people fell on our platforms. Don’t let this trip be your last.
Cut to a platform in a suburban train station, early noughties. I’m waiting with some of my school chums, a couple of whom are sitting on the platform edge dangling their legs over the side. Not the best idea, sure – though they can see trains coming from half a mile away. A train going in the other direction hurtles past on the far platform. A red-faced, moustachioed man in uniform leans out of the window and shouts something at my chums, shaking his fist. His train will terminate at the next station, then double back to where we are, by which time all legs will be well out of harm’s way.
We are sitting in the carriage when the door opens and in comes our man. He is – there is no other word for it – bristling with righteous indignation. “So these are the schoolboys who like cheating with death!” he cries in triumph (mixing his clichés). He proceeds to tell us a cautionary tale about “Little Johnny” (the kid’s always called Little Johnny) who blah blah blah legs blah blah blah crying mother blah blah wheelchair – you get the idea.
The man’s name was Terry – I read it on his name badge – and he became a running joke of ours, a byword for petty and generally arsey behaviour. Sure, my chums were being irresponsible. Sure, he was doing his job and was concerned for their safety. But it was the way he expressed himself, the patronising cautionary tale that rankled.
Flashback over – cut to present day.
What went through the mind of the person who slipped on the platform?
The floor.
Last year 77 people fell on our platforms. Don’t let this trip be your last.
Everything about this ad annoys me. It’s trying to use the same tricks as those manipulative “Think!” ads, but failing. Ooh, let’s suck them in with a joke, then send them a CHILLING MESSAGE. Except – what’s the message? 77 people fell over in one year? Most of whom didn’t die? (If they did die, SWT have really failed on the shock-tactics front, as it’s not at all clear).
Bear in mind there are over 200 stations on the SWT network, including some of the busiest in Britain. Thousands upon thousands of people use these platforms every day. It would seem that their health and safety record is actually remarkably good.
So what’s the point of the ad? Do they really think we don’t know that if you run on a wet surface, you might fall over? Do they really think that anyone who is too stupid to realise that will read their ad? Couldn’t the money they spent focus-grouping, designing and producing it have gone towards, I don’t know, making rail travel affordable? What was going through their minds? (Not the floor, that’s for damn sure). The spirit of Terry is alive and well.
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