Sncf: 2h04 - Paris/Bordeaux

Credits & Description:

Market: Paris
Agency: Buzzman
Entrant Company: Buzzman
Production Company: Première Fois Productions
Advertiser / Brand: Sncf/Tgv
President & Executive Creative Director: Georges Mohammed-Chérif

Vice-President: Thomas Granger

Associate Director: Julien Levilain

Art Director: Julien Doucet
Copywriter: Lilian Moine

Creative Assistant: Thibault Picot

Account Director: Thomas Crouzet

Strategic Planner: Clément Scherrer
Head Of Pr & Communication: Amélie Juillet
Pr & Communication Assistant: Victoria Morin
Pr & Communication Assistant: Kenza Bennani
Head Of Tv Production: Vanessa Barbel
Tv Production: Katya Violi
Production Agency: Première Fois Productions
Sound Production: Schmooze

Director: Kim Chapiron

Producer: Rudy Taieb
Date: May, 2017
Synopsis:
The Campaign
Reducing the travel time to 2h04 is actually not that good of a change for those who like to watch movies during their journey … To avoid any passenger frustration, TGV’s Client Relationship Manager decides to fly to Hollywood to convince the film industry to shorten its movies. She ends up on the set of Costner’s next superproduction and persuades him to edit it in less than two hours.The digital video has been promoted with an outdoor campaign just like a blockbuster.
After having convinced Costner, she has decided to issue letters in the press to the Cannes Film Festival President and to Hollywood’s most famous directors urging them to produce movies that could be watched in the TGV.
Finally, in theaters, just before any over 2-hour-long movies, TGV has broadcasted a warning telling the audience they would not be able to watch these movies during their travel.
Creative Execution
Overall, the campaign lasted three weeks. First, on May 10th, we launched the outdoor campaign that promoted the digital video like an upcoming blockbuster and we also released a trailer of our film. A few days later, we released the film that quickly went viral on YouTube and Facebook. On May 17th, the opening day of the Cannes Film Festival, we issued our first letter in the press to Almodóvar who was the President of the Jury. We then published the other letters until the end of the Festival on May 28th. In parallel, we broadcasted our warning in the theaters during the two weeks of the Festival during which they experience a record crowd.
It was impossible to miss the launch of the new Paris/Bordeaux travel time. Within just a few hours of launching, the campaign became a trending topic on Twitter generating 66,5M media impressions. The 4-minute video has been watched over 7M times and France’s leading VOD website even spontaneously listed under 2h04 films, pending the result of our efforts to shorten films. But what’s most important is that we’ve sold 1M tickets to Bordeaux for the 2017 summer, which is 40% higher than last year ! It seems that communicating the good news through the unique inconvenience was apparently a winning strategy.
When the French railways shorten their travel times, Hollywood must shorten its films. This is the idea that we’ve developed on several media platforms to promote the launch of the new Paris to Bordeaux in 2h04 train line. The campaign was composed of digital videos, outdoor, press and cinema advertising. While the digital video was showing her trip to Hollywood, the press campaign was made out of open letters she had written to famous Hollywood directors. The outdoor campaign served to promote the digital video as if it was an upcoming blockbuster.
Insights, Strategy and the Idea
Our strategy was to communicate the good news (the new travel time) through the unique inconvenience of this remarkable achievement. Our idea is based on a strong insight : 63% of the French like to watch movies on the train. This figure is even higher for those who travel to Bordeaux for most of them belong to the AB+ category. Since they are around forty, we’ve chosen Kevin Costner for our endorsement because he is an iconic star of the 90’s and famous for his long movies. We’ve also decided to launch our campaign during the Cannes Film Festival in order to « hack » this event and gain media coverage.