Audible Travel Billboards

In travel tourism advertising, it's common to try and entice people who have wanderlust with images of picture-perfect beaches, romantic getaways and bustling cities—but train operator Thalys decided to tap into another powerful sense to advocate its brand.

Rather than appealing only to one's sense of sight, Thalys set up a series of billboards to communicate The Sounds of the City. Each of these billboards featured a map representing Amsterdam, Paris or Brussels, with many small holes where a pair of headphones could be plugged in. Each individual headphone jack played a different sound, making people on the street feel as though they had been transported to another place and time. The point seems to be that if this is a billboard one person could spend a considerable amount of time enjoying, they may as well hop on a train and experience the city with their full senses.