May 2015 in France was a bonanza for holidays – 3 out of 4 weekends were holiday weekends! Thalys wanted to activate people to book tickets to visit cities on the Thalys train network.

We captured the sound identities of Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and integrated them into three outdoor installations. Each city was represented by over 1000 sounds. Each sound had a unique headphone jack.

The sounds included overheard conversations, street musicians, language lessons, market sellers, church bells, scam artists routines, and hundreds more.

Thalys often advertise their train destinations as a way of selling tickets, and they’re always looking for fresh ways to present them. Most pedestrians carry a pair of headphones with them these days, so why not advertise a city with sound? We captured the sound identities of Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, and integrated them into three adapted billboards. Each city was represented by over 1000 sounds. Each sound was accessed via a unique headphone jack. The sounds included overheard conversations, street musicians, language lessons, market sellers, church bells, scam artists routines, and hundreds more.

We changed perceptions about nearby cities on the network. Thousands of people interacted with the installations. At the time of writing, tickets for the three holiday weekends in May are selling out fast.

Visits to Thalys.com spiked by 20,000 impressions, a 58.5% increase on the average for that time of the year.