Plotting an Alternate Route through London
Personally, I have always secretly suspected the London Underground might in fact be the first circle of Dante’s Inferno.
Think about it. The geography works. As does the overcrowding and general sense of communal punishment. So anything that can upgrade the experience from “hell-adjacent” to “mildly unbearable” deserves recognition.
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 themed branch transformed a narrative journey into a literal one.
Every station was designed to sound like both a place name and a familiar plot point. For example, the Romance Branch started at Strangers Cross and ended at Reunion Bridge. Never in my life have I written so many puns.
Together, the branches formed an elaborate network of fictional journeys and interchanges, all of which proved to be a lot more complicated to design than we first imagined.
The Story Line launched with a takeover of King’s Cross Station, where our maps appeared across the station. Tannoy announcements got in on the act too, while contextual headlines continued the story throughout people’s commutes.
All in, the campaign was unavoidable. Unless you were listening to an audiobook. In which case, good.
