LOST HOUR

TitleLOST HOUR
BrandCITROËN
Product/ServiceCITROËN
Category D05. Cultural Insight
Entrant BETC Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation BETC Paris, FRANCE
Production LE LABO Paris, FRANCE
Credits
Name Company Position
Stéphane Xiberras BETC Chief Creative Officer
Nicolas Lautier BETC Creative Director
Thomas Préchac BETC Copywriter
Julien Grimaldi BETC Agency Management
Chloé PIrajean BETC Agency Management
Hélène Talbot BETC Agency Management
Andrew Jolliffe BETC Copywriter
Bastien Sabot BETC Art Director

View Script

Write a short summary of what happens in the radio or audio work.

2020 is the final year France will switch to daylight saving time, before definitively choosing between winter or summer time. Citroën decided to take advantage of this news during the final transition to summer time, which will no longer take place in 2021. The Lost Hour is a radio broadcast, released only on FM freeway (a radio station for road traffic), broadcast right at the moment of daylight saving time. Precisely at that time, in the middle of the night, we lost an hour. An hour's drive where many things could have happened, but which have now fallen into the limbo of a parallel universe. The Lost Hour invites you to enter this universe for a few moments...

Translation. Provide a full English translation of any audio.

THE LOST HOUR. Female Voice, Whispering: Calling all night drivers. This evening, Citroen has something to share with you. Male Voice: You are on the road. The road through the night. The straight black strip, broken only by the non-stop beat of lamp-posts and a billowing curtain of trees. It’s 1.59. A no-man’s time. No birds, no beasts, no clouds, no outside world. You look up, and know your only companions are the cosmos and a waking moon. Then, one minute, 60 tiny seconds later, the unthinkable happens. The clock on the dashboard loses its mind. Forgets the laws of the earth. Suddenly, it's not two in the morning. It's three. By some mysterious contraction, an hour has gone. Evaporated. As if the earth stood still. Stolen by the seasons. Lost to the gods. Gone. Along with everything that might have happened in it. Which bridges might you have crossed? Who, or what, might you have met, and why? What decisions made? Right, left, down the side road, refreshment, rest, respite, or just on, and on? But it is now 3.01. So, you will never know. You’re just going on, and on. An orphan on four wheels, on the way from someplace to somewhere. Happily, on a road you’ll soon forget. Because nobody can remember what never took place. Or what might have happened. On this through the change to daylight saving time.

Please tell us about the cultural insight that inspired the work

Sunday March 29 at 2am, France switched to summer time. 2020 is the final year France will switch to daylight saving time, before definitively choosing between winter or summer time. Citroen created a special broadcast for this lost hour, inviting overnight drivers to dive into the story of a parallel universe.