When you see a seashell at the beach, your first reaction is to place in your ear hoping to hear the sound of the sea.

When you place our seashells next to the ear, the sound they will play is not exactly relaxing beach waves, but the stories of the people who crossed the Mediterranean Sea searching for a safe haven, told by the survivors themselves, surprising the listener with this special seashells as an sonorous medium.

Moreover, when someone listened to one of these special seashells, a tweet was set to publish with the story inside of it, creating the first sound thread in Twitter.

At least 769 migrants have lost their lives or disappeared in the Mediterranean Sea while trying to reach the Spanish coast in 2018. A year in which at least 56,480 people have managed to reach Spain after crossing the Mediterranean Sea, according to data compiled by the OIM. The number of deaths in the Mediterranean has increased by 243% compared to last year.

Ibrahim:

The sound of the sea.

Voice-over: Were you expecting to hear the sound of the sea? Listen to this story and you’ll realise that the sea doesn’t sound the same to everyone.

Ibrahim: You leave Africa and you get yourself into a small canoe; sometimes it’s hot, other times it’s cold and windy, you’re hungry and thirsty. Imagine that you’ve woken up in the middle of the night and you see a small boat carrying over 80 people. You’re stuck in the same position for two weeks. You wake up at night and you can only see water surrounding you.

Some people have gone completely crazy. They start to scream and become delirious...it’s horrific. The sea sounds completely dangerous to me. If you’re lucky, you’ll be found by the police. If you’re not, you’re lost.

Voice-over: Learn the full story on Twitter with the hashtag #ElOtroSonidoDelMar, and help us bring back its true sound.

Using seashells as an advertising medium to showcase stories in order to generate conversation in a direct and non-intrusive way, and making it bigger by posting each time someone listened to the seashells in Twitter.

As well, we posted in Twitter the testimonials in a unique thread, replicating our physical seashells in “digital seashells”, creating the first Sound Thread of Twitter.