J. Walter Thompson Taipei introduces the train that changes lives to provide the right career path
This is a train that changes life. With this opener, J. Walter Thompson Taipei and Taiwan’s Workforce Development Agency, part of its Ministry of Labor, charm viewers with an evocative TVC about how the right advice, given at the right time, can help guide one on the right career path, and away from a lifetime of unfulfilled ambitions.
After Taiwan’s Vocational Training Bureau expanded into the Workforce Development Agency, J. Walter Thompson was recruited to rebrand the unit. The result was a three-part TVC series – which ran longer online, starting December last year.
In one episode, A-Di, a medical student, gets on the train. We learn that he’s an ambivalent student, more interested in doodling and daydreaming. It takes his illiterate grandmother, who relies on him to read and explain her medical appointments, to gently suggest that he might be heading down the wrong track. When A-Di gets off the train, he decides to sign up for a 3D-animation course, changing the course of his life.
The TVC series “The Train That Changes Lives” has struck a chord, garnering almost 2 million views online since December, and helped introduce the government agency and its functions to a new generation.
Viewers called it the most heartfelt public service ad ever in Taiwan. “Based on mutual trust, this remarkable work marks the milestone of joint efforts between a public service agency and an advertising agency,” said Evan Teng, Managing Director of J. Walter Thompson Taipei.