How RATP Turned Paris Métro Buskers Into a Viral Christmas Choir
RATP's #ChoraleDuMétro is a December 2018 digital and social campaign created by We Are Social Paris that staged six Paris Métro buskers performing an a cappella canon version of Jingle Bells across sequential Instagram Stories, inviting audiences to combine individual vocal tracks into a full choir using multiple devices.
The campaign launched in France on 20 December 2018, according to Clapboard. Each of the six musicians — Haylen, Guito B, Emji, Marvin Parks, Chloé Breit, and Lidiop — appeared in their own Instagram Story, their individual voices designed to overlap and harmonise when played simultaneously across several phones, as reported by Ads of the World. The mechanic transformed a passive viewing experience into a participatory musical moment, positioning the everyday performers of the Paris Métro as the creative heart of the campaign.
RATP, the public transport authority governing the Paris Métro and broader Île-de-France transit network, deployed the film across Instagram Stories, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to Clapboard. The campaign sat at the intersection of the transport and leisure categories, using the cultural familiarity of a universally recognised Christmas jingle to generate warmth and affinity for a public institution most Parisians encounter as a functional necessity rather than a source of delight. In France, where the Métro is both infrastructure and cultural symbol, reframing its unofficial musicians as festive performers carried genuine narrative weight. The Clapboard Score for #ChoraleDuMétro is 64 out of 100, reflecting the campaign's creative originality balanced against limited documented reach data.
We Are Social Paris identified a distinctive strategic insight for the RATP campaign. The Paris Métro busking programme, known officially as Musique en Métro, already gave authorised musicians a platform inside the transit network, lending the campaign an entirely authentic cast rather than hired performers. By elevating these figures from background texture to featured protagonists, the agency converted an existing RATP institutional asset into a social storytelling engine.
The choice of Instagram Stories as the primary distribution format was structurally deliberate. The sequential, ephemeral nature of Stories created a natural canon-like structure where each musician's contribution built on the last, mirroring the musical form of the Jingle Bells remix itself. This alignment between platform mechanic and creative concept is rare in transport advertising and set #ChoraleDuMétro apart from more conventional festive brand films produced during the same period. Amplification extended to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to Clapboard, ensuring the campaign reached audiences beyond Instagram's core demographic in France.
In the French public transport market, RATP operates in a competitive landscape that includes SNCF, which manages national and regional rail services across France, and Transdev, a major private operator running bus and tram networks throughout the country. Neither competitor pursued a comparable music-led social narrative during the 2018 festive period, as reported by Ads of the World and La Réclame. The broader global public transport market was a growing sector during this period, with Industry Growth Insights describing sustained international demand for urban transit services. Within France, RATP's communications have historically leaned institutional; #ChoraleDuMétro represented a deliberate move toward cultural relevance and emotional resonance rather than service messaging.
Nicolas Duménil served as Creative Director on #ChoraleDuMétro at We Are Social Paris, according to Clapboard. Paul Grange and Fabien Gailleul were the Art Directors responsible for the visual execution, with Marius Saltet handling motion design and Cécile Ousset serving as TV Producer.
The creative execution rested on a precise technical conceit. Six musicians recorded separate a cappella vocal and instrumental parts of Jingle Bells, each filmed individually in a style consistent with authentic Métro performance — intimate framing, natural acoustics, the visual grammar of underground busking. When released sequentially through Instagram Stories, the tracks were engineered to synchronise across multiple devices when played simultaneously, as reported by La Réclame and RTL. This multi-phone choir mechanic required both precise audio production and careful social distribution sequencing, elevating the campaign from a branded content film to an interactive musical experience.
The motion design work by Marius Saltet gave each Story visual coherence without homogenising the performers' individual identities, preserving the spontaneous human quality that made the concept credible. Camille Lacarrere served as Production Executive and Marie-Flore Houpert as Assistant TV Producer, with Boris Le Guen managing amplification strategy across platforms, according to Clapboard. The decision to film the musicians in performance mode rather than advertising mode — no forced smiles, no product messaging, no brand intrusion beyond the RATP association — gave the campaign an earned authenticity rarely achieved in transport sector communications. The Jingle Bells remix itself, arranged as a canon, was the organising logic of the entire creative system, making the musical form inseparable from the distribution format in a way that reinforced both.
No verified commercial performance data for #ChoraleDuMétro, such as reach figures, engagement rates, or brand lift metrics, is publicly available. The campaign's structural effectiveness, however, is evidenced by its recognition within the French advertising industry.
#ChoraleDuMétro won two Silver awards at the Grand Prix de la Vidéo Numérique 2019, according to Clapboard. The Grand Prix de la Vidéo Numérique is a French industry award specifically honouring digital video creativity, making the recognition directly relevant to the campaign's chosen medium. Additional award recognition was documented at industry level in France, as reported by La Réclame and Stratégies, two of the country's principal advertising trade publications.
From a structural standpoint, the campaign demonstrated above-average creative coherence for the transport category in France. The alignment between musical form, platform mechanic, and audience participation created a self-reinforcing system: the Instagram Stories format necessitated sequential viewing, the sequential viewing enabled the canon structure, and the canon structure rewarded multi-device participation. Each layer added depth without requiring production complexity beyond the reach of a public sector communications budget. The use of existing RATP Musique en Métro performers also eliminated the credibility gap that afflicts many institutional festive campaigns. The Clapboard Score of 64 out of 100 reflects genuine creative ambition and a formally inventive concept, tempered by the absence of measurable audience impact data and the campaign's relatively limited single-asset scope as documented in the Clapboard archive.
#ChoraleDuMétro was a December 2018 digital campaign for RATP created by We Are Social Paris. Six Paris Métro buskers each performed a separate a cappella part of Jingle Bells across sequential Instagram Stories, designed to be played simultaneously across multiple devices to form a complete choir.
The campaign featured six authorised Paris Métro musicians. Their names were Haylen, Guito B, Emji, Marvin Parks, Chloé Breit, and Lidiop, according to Clapboard. All six were participants in RATP's official Musique en Métro busking programme, lending the campaign its authentic performance credibility.
We Are Social Paris created #ChoraleDuMétro for RATP. Creative Director Nicolas Duménil led the project, with Art Directors Paul Grange and Fabien Gailleul shaping the visual execution, according to Clapboard. The campaign launched on 20 December 2018 across Instagram Stories, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in France.
#ChoraleDuMétro won two Silver awards at the Grand Prix de la Vidéo Numérique 2019, according to Clapboard. The campaign also received recognition in French trade press including La Réclame and Stratégies, establishing it as a notable example of creative digital work within the French transport advertising sector.
Each of the six musicians recorded a separate audio track, released as individual Instagram Stories. Users were invited to play multiple Stories simultaneously across several phones, creating a live a cappella choir effect, as reported by La Réclame and RTL. The mechanic turned the Jingle Bells canon structure into an interactive social experience.
RATP distributed #ChoraleDuMétro primarily through Instagram Stories, with amplification across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, according to Clapboard. Instagram Stories served as the primary creative medium because its sequential format mirrored the canon musical structure of the Jingle Bells remix at the heart of the campaign concept.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
.jpg&w=256&q=75)
