Thalys is a train service. They are losing business to websites that organise carpooling. To combat this, Thalys have created a new service that offers the benefits of carpooling, but on a high-speed train.

We decided to launch this new service in the middle of enemy territory. In a community that adores cars and their drivers : the Facebook community of Sebastien Loeb, 9 time World Rally Champion.

First of all, Loeb posted a tease video, inviting fans to carpool with him from Paris to Belgium.

Thousands applied for the chance to carpool with one of the fastest drivers in the world. Three were selected.

On the day, the 3 fans met Loeb in Paris. He invited them to walk to his ride, which turned out to be a Thalys train.

The interaction was filmed, and released to Leob’s community.

With zero media spending, the campaign spread from it’s base of ‘car fans’ to reach 2.1 million people.

A key part of the tease was the comment, from Sebastien Loeb, that the carpooling was going to happen at high speed. This led to much discussion online: would he break the speed limit? Would he travel via Germany, where there is no speed limit on the autobahn? This was the link with our service, trainpooling at high speed.

After 500,000 views and 20,000 expressions of interest via likes and comments, 3 lucky fans were chosen to make the trip with Sebastien. A few days later, the fans met Sebastien in the morning and Paris… and discovered that they would indeed be traveling at high speeds… in a Thalys train!

We captured the whole stunt on film, and released the video on April 16th, the day the Tickup service was officially launched.

With zero media spending, and a total project budget of 50,000 euro, the campaign spread from it’s base of ‘car fans’ to reach 2.1 million people on social media. 900,000 people watched the videos. 4000 total people commented, 29,000 people liked, and 5000 shared.

Reaction from Sebastien Loeb’s fans was 90% positive, and the campaign was picked up in local and national media.