Captify (part of Verve) and McCann Media show how small talk can save lives in their campaign for Network Rail, Samaritans and British Transport Police

Captify (part of Verve) and McCann Media joined forces with Network Rail, Samaritans and British Transport Police to launch Small Talk Saves Lives campaign, aiming to reduce suicide on the rail network. The campaign used real-time search insights activated across CTV and interactive video to show how even the most ordinary conversation with anyone who may be struggling can make a difference. The campaign combined CTV and interactive video units, delivering a 98% search uplift.

Challenge:

Most people walk past someone who may be struggling because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing.The challenge wasn't that people don't care. It's often that they don't know what to say or worry about making the situation worse.

The objective was to reach people most likely to encounter someone who may be struggling with mental health and encourage them to feel confident taking action.

The campaign focused on awareness, confidence and action, aiming to reach over 1.5 million per channel and help minimise the awkwardness people feel about approaching a stranger, with the goal of turning that hesitation into life-saving action.

Solution:

Captify's Search Intelligence enabled Small Talk Saves Lives to move beyond demographic targeting and identify people based on real-time intent. Captify analysed billions of daily search signals across the open web to identify audiences whose behaviours closely aligned with rail travel. This included commuters, frequent rail passengers and rail staff.

The campaign did not rely on static audience segments, but instead built dynamic audiences using live search behaviours such as train fares, season tickets and live departures.

The audience over-indexed on commuter profiles, city dwellers and travel-related behaviours and was continuously refreshed throughout the campaign to ensure messaging reached people actively engaging with the rail network.

Running across priority high-incident locations from 5 to 26 March 2026, the campaign targeted rail passengers aged 30 to 49 as its primary audience, with rail staff and the wider 30 to 49 general public as secondary audiences.

The media approach combined CTV, delivering the brand message in a premium, lean-back environment, with interactive desktop video units using two-way conversational creative to move beyond passive viewing into active dialogue with viewers.

A video conversational unit invited people to answer questions on small talk, with results auto-optimising in real time. A/B testing compared two openers: "Hey are you alright?" and "Lovely weather", across nearly 2 million English-language impressions, showing a preference for the latter. A Welsh-language toggle was also built into the conversational unit from the outset.

Engagement-led creative gathered live audience insight on attitudes to small talk and intervention while the campaign was still in market, feeding directly into optimisations during the flight.

Meanwhile, the ad server automatically shifted weight towards the stronger-performing opener ("lovely weather").

Results:

The campaign delivered reach and engagement, while providing insight into the barriers that prevent people from starting life-saving conversations during rail travels.

• 2 million unique users reached on CTV, with a 97% video completion rate
• Video conversational unit drove over 2 million impressions, with 61% completion and 87-88% viewability
• 98% search uplift for the combined CTV and video approach, compared with 41% from CTV alone
• 95% increase in searches for support services post-campaign

The campaign's biggest creative learning came from its own audience data: 58% of users said fear of making a situation worse was their biggest barrier to starting a conversation.

A/B testing also found that "Lovely weather" was strongly preferred to "Hey are you alright?", pointing to the value of low-pressure, relatable openers.

Together, these insights showed that rather than simply urging people to intervene, the most effective creative removes the fear of getting it wrong and leads with an ordinary, relatable hook people already use every day.

Jane Wolfson, President of UK & International at Captify (part of Verve):

"Small Talk Saves Lives tackled an extremely important issue, so it was essential to reach people who might be in a position to help. Demographics alone wouldn't give us that level of understanding, but by looking at real-time search behaviour linked to rail travel, we were able to help Network Rail, Samaritans and British Transport Police build a more relevant audience. Using video formats across CTV and desktop, we reached and engaged these audiences in a meaningful way, while achieving results above our initial KPIs."

Lucy Dixon, Senior Campaigns Manager, Marketing, Campaigns & Brand at Network Rail:

"Small Talk Saves Lives is all about showing people that they don't need the perfect words to help someone who may be struggling. This campaign used a simple, everyday insight to make intervention feel more achievable, showing that even the most ordinary small talk can be powerful. The results are really encouraging and show the value of using smart, interactive media to build confidence and prompt action."

Amardip Jhamat, Senior Account Director at McCann:

"This campaign demonstrated the power of combining behavioural insight with innovative media execution. By using an interactive CTV experience, we were able to transform passive viewing into active participation, helping audiences practise life-saving conversations in a way that felt natural, engaging and memorable. The results show how the right media strategy can not only maximise reach, but also drive genuine behaviour change."

Yuliya Moldavska - Nov 10, 2026 - 5 min read