13ÈME RUE France, the French TV channel, launched its first original series: Trauma.

Producing the show was done in a particularly tough market, in which 13ÈME RUE faces fierce competition from several streaming platforms who are all launching highly anticipated series to millions of fans.

Our challenge was to give visibility to the 1st original series by 13ÈME RUE, a small channel with a fairly modest audience (SFR subscribers), using a limited budget, and at a time when no one knew that the channel was producing original content.

Knowing the show was addictive, we decided to find a creative way to offer the first episode that hooked viewers and encouraged subscriptions to the channel to watch the second episode.

The fact the character was discovering his dark side every time he went below ground (to his basement) was a good opportunity to catch people’s attention.

Inspired by the series’ storyline unravelling below ground, we created the first depth-contextualised billboard, allowing fans to discover the first episode of the show (in a secret preview) by descending into the city’s deepest metro stations. Below ground, we placed immersive videos in DOOH screens showing a camera descending through the ground until it reached the actual depth of the specific DOOH screen. At the end of the descent, the screen displays the key visual of the show: a woman held captive in a basement. Then, the commuter scans the QR-code on the DOOH screen which launches a mobile player, allowing the commuter to watch the series’ first episode before its release. Every metre below ground equals a free minute of the show—the deeper the metro, the more you can watch.

We wanted people to discover this dark thriller in the perfect place: dark metro stations. Every meter below ground gave access to one minute of the show.

We used DOOH screens in a dynamic way by playing with the depth of each station, every screen showing different content.

Via the metro DOOH, we turned boring metro commutes into an invitation to an exclusive premiere.

The DOOH campaign was supplemented by web PR and a digital media plan (display / social media) targeted towards thriller fans, as well as 13ÈME RUE fans on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

First, the film presenting the series as well as the mechanics of the activation was launched. This was targeted towards Parisians who identified as film/series fans.

Then, we retargeted these people who were exposed to the launch phase, showing them a map of the stations in which to find the DOOH displays.

The campaign was rolled out in Paris the week before the launch of the series Trauma on TV (from November 18th to 25th).

In collaboration with the RATP (Autonomous Parisian Transportation Administration), we carefully picked the 250 deepest DOOH screens in 80 stations of the Paris metro with a good 4G connection. We produced 50 different videos to make them specific to each screen—the immersive video changes according the location and the depth of the station. Then, thanks to a QR-Code, commuters were redirected to a mobile player to watch a part of the first episode for free. People could add more minutes by scanning the QR code of another digital billboard.

• The DOOH screens got 33 million views from commuters.

• 5 million minutes of the first episode were unlocked.

• Channel subscriptions increased by 35% after the campaign.