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DS Automobiles Turns a Hidden Song Into a Luxury Driving Ritual
DS Automobiles' #HiddenTrack is a 2017 French experiential campaign created by Marcel Paris that invited owners of the limited-edition DS3 Inès de la Fressange and DS4 Crossback Moondust to unlock an unreleased track by Empire of the Sun when their vehicles encountered each other, transforming the cars themselves into the mechanism for an exclusive musical reward.
The campaign launched on March 15, 2017, and was published in France in April 2017, according to Clapboard.com. Marcel conceived the mechanic around a simple but elegant proposition: ownership of an ultra-limited automobile confers privileges unavailable to the general public. In this case, that privilege was access to the complete version of "On Our Way Home," a track that existed nowhere else in the world. The DS3 Dark Side, a third limited edition in DS Automobiles' 2017 European program, was also referenced as part of the wider campaign context, as noted by Clapboard.com.
In France, where automotive luxury has historically carried cultural as well as commercial weight, the campaign positioned DS not merely as a car manufacturer but as a curator of rarified experiences. The French market was the natural home for this ambition. DS Automobiles had separated from Citroën as a standalone premium brand in 2014, and by 2017 the brand was actively constructing an identity distinct from its mass-market origins. The #HiddenTrack campaign gave that identity a lived, sensory dimension — one that extended beyond the showroom and into the daily movements of real owners on French roads. A Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100 reflects the campaign's structural originality while acknowledging the inherent limits of a mechanic dependent on a small, geographically concentrated owner base.
DS Automobiles entered 2017 competing against some of the most entrenched names in global premium motoring. Mercedes-Benz sold 2,289,344 vehicles globally in 2017, up 9.9% versus 2016, according to Press Bmwgroup and focus2move.com. BMW sold 2,088,283 vehicles in the same year, up 4.2%, per press.bmwgroup.com. Audi recorded 1,878,100 global sales in 2017, up 0.6%, according to focus2move.com. Against that volume, a French brand reborn from Citroën's shadow in 2014 faced an acute credibility challenge, particularly in France, where premium automotive consumers are sophisticated and brand heritage is scrutinised closely.
DS's stated strategic objective, as documented by Autocar.co.uk, was to compete against Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz while reviving a distinctly French tradition of luxury vehicle design. Marcel's insight was that product specifications alone would not close the perception gap. The limited-edition DS3 Inès de la Fressange and DS4 Crossback Moondust were collaborations designed to signal cultural taste and scarcity, and the #HiddenTrack campaign amplified that scarcity by embedding an experiential reward directly into ownership. The mechanic made rarity tangible: the music could only exist if two owners found each other, a condition that turned exclusivity from a marketing claim into a daily lived experience on French roads.
Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover, also identified as principal DS benchmarks per Clapboard.com, had pursued their own experiential and partnership strategies to differentiate from German volume. DS's approach in France distinguished itself by making the product itself the activation platform, bypassing media channels entirely and embedding the campaign inside the automotive experience.
Marcel Paris built the #HiddenTrack campaign around a digital-meets-physical architecture in which the cars' proximity to one another served as the trigger for content delivery. The creative leadership at Marcel was substantial. Anne de Maupeou served as creative chairman, with Dimitri Guerassimov and Fabien Teichner as chief creative officers, according to Clapboard.com. Fabien Teichner also directed the campaign film, as noted by campaignlive.co.uk. Digital creative direction was handled by Lionel Bui, with art direction by Clément Sechet and Margaux Marie, and copywriting by Antonin Jacquot. Head of design François Prost and managing partner and chief strategy officer Nicolas Levy, alongside strategic planner Séverine Bavon, completed the core Marcel team, per Clapboard.com.
The production infrastructure supporting the campaign was equally considered. Prodigious handled television and sound production. Standard served as the film production company. Nightshift oversaw post-production. Empire of the Sun provided the music, with their unreleased track "On Our Way Home" functioning simultaneously as content, reward, and creative anchor, according to campaignlive.co.uk. The choice of Empire of the Sun — an act with a strong aesthetic identity built around spectacle and transformation — was not incidental. Their sonic signature reinforced the DS brand's aspiration toward the theatrical and the exclusive.
The single media asset at the heart of the campaign, documented by Clapboard.com, carried significant creative responsibility. Rather than a broad media campaign requiring multiple touchpoints, Marcel concentrated the entire experiential proposition into one experience that owners either discovered or did not — a deliberate scarcity of communication that mirrored the scarcity of the vehicles themselves. In France, where the campaign was anchored, that restraint read as confidence.
No verified performance data for the #HiddenTrack campaign is publicly available. DS Automobiles and Marcel Paris have not published figures for owner participation rates, digital engagement volumes, or sales attribution connected to the DS3 Inès de la Fressange or DS4 Crossback Moondust limited editions in France or elsewhere.
Structural analysis, however, reveals a campaign of genuine inventiveness constrained by its own exclusivity logic. The mechanic — requiring two participating vehicles to encounter each other to unlock the musical reward — is elegant in concept but statistically demanding in practice. In France, where the limited editions were concentrated, the pool of eligible owners was by definition small. The probability of two owners crossing paths without a coordinated discovery mechanism was low, which may have limited organic participation even among motivated audiences.
What the campaign achieved with certainty was a clearly differentiated brand position. As Adweek has covered in the context of premium automotive launches, experiential campaigns that embed rewards inside the ownership experience rather than broadcast them through paid media generate disproportionate press and trade attention relative to their production cost. #HiddenTrack fits that pattern. The use of Empire of the Sun's unreleased track extended the cultural register of the campaign well beyond the automotive category, connecting DS Automobiles to music, art, and creative collaboration in France and internationally. The Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100 reflects the campaign's conceptual ambition and creative coherence while noting the structural dependency on a small owner base as a ceiling on measurable impact.
#HiddenTrack is a 2017 experiential campaign by DS Automobiles and Marcel Paris. It invited owners of the limited-edition DS3 Inès de la Fressange and DS4 Crossback Moondust to unlock an unreleased Empire of the Sun track when their vehicles encountered each other, making proximity between owners the activation trigger, according to Clapboard.com.
The campaign promoted the DS3 Inès de la Fressange and DS4 Crossback Moondust limited editions. The DS3 Dark Side was also referenced as part of DS Automobiles' broader 2017 European limited-edition program. All three models were positioned as ultra-exclusive vehicles, with the campaign mechanic reinforcing their scarcity, per Clapboard.com.
Marcel Paris created #HiddenTrack. Creative chairman Anne de Maupeou led the team alongside chief creative officers Dimitri Guerassimov and Fabien Teichner, who also directed the campaign film. Digital creative direction came from Lionel Bui. Prodigious, Standard, and Nightshift handled production, with music provided by Empire of the Sun, according to campaignlive.co.uk.
DS Automobiles used "On Our Way Home," an unreleased track by Empire of the Sun. Owners could only access the complete version when two participating vehicles encountered each other, making the song itself the exclusive reward. The track's unavailability outside this mechanic was central to the campaign's appeal, as documented by Clapboard.com.
DS Automobiles, established as a standalone brand in 2014, competes against Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi by emphasising French luxury heritage and cultural partnerships. In 2017, rather than matching German volume, DS used campaigns like #HiddenTrack to embed exclusivity into ownership itself, a strategy covered by Autocar.co.uk and Adweek in the context of premium automotive differentiation.
#HiddenTrack received a Clapboard Score of 61 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's conceptual originality and creative coherence in linking automotive ownership to an exclusive musical experience in France. It also accounts for the structural constraint of a mechanic reliant on a small pool of limited-edition vehicle owners finding one another, per Clapboard.com.
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