SNCF launched a brand-new ad campaign “Fireworks”, inspired by one of their foundational purposes: ‘‘To offer everyone the freedom to easily move around while preserving the planet.” as expressed at the end of 2018. Mid 2018, SNCF faced an important period of strikes – around 4 months - that lead to splits: within the company between strikers and non-strikers, and with the clients.

The end of the year, and Christmas period was the proper time to recreates links with French people with a non-controversial topic: the preservation of the environment.

The idea was to make Nature thanks people who prefers train over polluting transports. We created the most environmentally-friendly new year’s fireworks display possible. The film showcases the successive blooming of a multitude of flowers, as a pure firework.

1 image taken every 5 seconds, day and night; a total of 14 000 images per flowers, were recreated into a time lapse film. 50 varieties of flowers and more than 200 hours of shots were necessary for the filming. The shooting being dependent of blooming of the flowers (between 24 and 72 hours), the key word was “patience”. More than 800 hours of rushes were cumulated. A particular attention was given to sound design to matches the firework theme and the blooming. The film lives without any music.

Trains give off 30 times less CO2 than individual cars and 20 times less than planes.

It is from this assessment that we created this campaign for SNCF with a simple message: take the train means being a responsible citizen and do something for the benefit of the planet.

Assuming this position places the passengers at the heart of the message, thanking them, “each day, 5 million of you choose the train which means 5 million tonnes less of CO2 in the environment’’. This is the 1st time that SNCF has spoken out about a theme in which they are particularly involved: the train being the most ecological mode of public transportation. The environmental subject is a legitimate topic for SNCF, even if it’s not well known by the public.

The movie was aired on TV, web and in cinemas for 2 weeks.

An inauguration was organised on the front of a major train station to unveil the film to the press. The movie was projected for 2 days on the façade of this building. Flowers were distributed to people to thank them to take the train and preserve the planet by choosing train.

The image barometer of SNCF has never been so high (5,9) at the end of the year while there was 4 months of strikes that same year. It is linked to this emotional advertising campaign.