Plotting an Alternate Route through London
Secretly, I have always suspected the London Underground might be the first circle of Dante’s Inferno.
Think about it. The geography works. As does the overcrowding and general sense of communal punishment.
Which is why it felt like the perfect place to promote Audible. Where better to sell escape than somewhere everyone wants to escape from?
In partnership with TfL, we created the all-new and entirely fictitious Story Line, an alternative route through the world of audiobooks.
Built around eight genres, each branch mapped the journey of a story.
Every station represented a familiar plot point, disguised as a plausible British place name. For example, the Romance Branch started at Strangers Cross and ended at Reunion Bridge. At last, my obsession with puns had found a healthy outlet.
Together, the branches formed an elaborate network of fictional journeys and interchanges. Rumour Mill, for example, connected the Spy and the Romance branches.
With eight branches, each sharing at least one station with another, this self-inflicted task proved a lot more complicated than any of us first imagined.
The Story Line launched with a takeover of King’s Cross Station, where our fictional network came to life alongside the real one.
Our icons and maps appeared throughout the concourse. Even the tannoy announcements got in on the act, encouraging commuters to “tap in to begin their journey” and reassuring them there was a “good service running on all genres”.
Meanwhile, contextual headlines ran across the station, speaking to story-lovers of every kind.
All in, the campaign was hard to miss.
Unless you were listening to an audiobook.
In which case, good.
