Thalys - Sounds Of The City

Thalys - Sounds Of The City

In a world where we put a lot of stock into how things look, French train company Thalys has executed an innovative promotion reminding us all to take a moment and listen.

To encourage people to travel by train and explore new cities, Thalys created a series of audio street billboards, which enable three major destination cities to “speak for themselves”.

The billboards feature a simple map of Paris, Amsterdam or Brussels, plus thousands of tiny headset jacks. People passing by can then use their own personal headphones (which, ironically, are often used to down out city noise) to plug into the sounds of another city.

Each billboard plays host to more than 1000 unique sounds from nearby European metropolis. From pigeons to traffic to lively debates in street-side cafes, no city sound was overlooked.

In an interview creative director Jamie- Edward Standen of Thalys’ ad agency Rosa Parks said:

You’d think that it would be easy to inspire people to visit Brussels or Paris or Amsterdam, but in fact people get blasé about the cities that are just a few hundred kilometres away. They’re perceived as less exotic. So the task is always to present those cities in a new light.

Thalys posted a video documenting the billboard creation process and user interaction on its YouTube channel, where it has been viewed over 20,000 times.

This innovative audio technique could work just as well for airlines looking to promote destinations in a novel way.