London, 5th October 2020 – The BBC is launching a new augmented reality out-of-home experience to celebrate its BBC Sounds offering.

The push was developed by BBC Creative in partnership with media agency Havas Media Manchester, out-of-home specialists Talon Outdoor, digital out-of-home production company Grand Visual and media owner JC Decaux.

In order to build an understanding and love of BBC Sounds and help make it the go-to audio app amongst 16 to 34-year-olds, the BBC has created a bespoke augmented reality bus shelter installation to celebrate the BBC Sounds brand offering of Music, Radio and Podcasts.

Static six-sheets on the exterior of the shelter, which is located in Manchester’s Piccadilly Gardens, invite people to come inside and try out the augmented reality experience. The digital screens inside the shelter are triggered by the presence of people, ‘morphing’ audiences using different filters to illustrate how Music, Radio and Podcasts have the power to make you feel moved. The changing visuals are accompanied by audio content from the three offerings.

The augmented reality technology used enables people to interact with the installation in a Covid-safe way, with no touch required. It has also been tested to ensure the recognition element still works when passers-by are wearing face masks.

Andrea Taylor, Media Portfolio Lead, BBC Sounds, said: “If sound is the most powerful sense, our ambition with this activation is to release that power on our audience. In every asset, every emotion and every interaction we create, we want to move people by the power of BBC Sounds.”

 

Lucy Barnes, Strategy Partner, Havas Media Manchester, said: “We know the people we’re trying to reach want authentic experiences, so with this campaign we needed to ‘show not tell’ why BBC Sounds is relevant to them. We are presenting the power of BBC Sounds to them in their moments of need, on their commute or their way home, with an immersive, reactive and personalised experience that should help make Sounds their audio app of choice.”

 

Nadiya Abubakar, Production Director, Grand Visual, added: “Using interactive digital OOH is a great way to really engage with the audience and a create memorable experience. This campaign with BBC really demonstrates how clever use of technology combined with eye-catching creative really brought the BBC Sounds experience to life.”

To follow on from the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, LEGO has launched a digital OOH campaign, inviting shoppers to “Master the Force.” The experiential campaign uses on-screen LEGO bricks to build galaxy fighters, and promote the latest characters and brick sets tied to the Star Wars anthology.

Gesture sensor technology enables passers-by to engage with the on-screen LEGO sets, with users prompted to choose a side, and start building the spaceships of the new galaxy. The goal is to win the ultimate accolade of becoming a true Jedi Master, so the faster they build, the higher the score. After the game, there’s the opportunity for participants to ‘take a photo with the crew’, encouraging social sharing and amplifying the reach of the campaign.

Mark Phillips, Developer, Grand Visual, comments:

“It was fun developing the game using new camera technology which is still in development. The camera has the ability to recognize humans and can track joint movements in a 3D space, in essence, it’s an updated version of the Microsoft Kinect. The camera has incredible sensor technology, and is able to capture the movements of the player without confusing them with people in the background who are not involved in the game.”

The campaign was a collaborative effort, conceived by Initiative, with production, animation and interactive build by Grand Visual. Media planning and buying by Initiative and Rapport. The week-long Application runs on large-format Limited Space screens at busy shopping malls Bluewater and Newcastle Metro Centre from the 28th May.

Ric Albert, Creative Director, Grand Visual, said:

“Immersive experiences created with strategic use of creative technology allow the customer to get hands-on and explore LEGO’s latest products in a fun and memorable ways. At the end of gameplay the photo op then broadens the audience by encouraging people to share their picture online with family and friends.”

ITV, now home to The Voice UK, is kicking-off an interactive DOOH campaign to promote the show’s brand new coaching line-up ahead of the rebooted show’s debut on ITV. The week-long campaign domination features superstar coaches Gavin Rossdale, Jennifer Hudson, Sir Tom Jones and will.i.am who surprise shoppers passing by large-format, Ultra HD screens in shopping centres across the UK including Bluewater, Arndale and the Bullring.

The campaign features the coaches sitting in their famous red chairs with their backs facing the public. Each time a shopper passes close by the content is triggered and the chairs spin round to reveal the all-star cast accompanied by claps and crowd cheers and the call to action to tune in to ITV, 8pm Saturdays, #TheVoiceUK.

The DOOH activation was conceived by Goodstuff and Talon, with production and interactive build by Grand Visual, using a bespoke Arduino tech solution with integrated PIR sensors. The campaign runs across Limited Space’s large format digital network, with full audio and vinyl surround installation and supports a broader outdoor and multichannel push announcing the arrival of The Voice to screens on Saturday January 7, 2017, on ITV.

Natasha Reddy, Marketing Manager – Entertainment and Daytime, ITV, commented:

“One of our main objectives with launching The Voice on ITV was to make the campaign and all comms around the launch as innovative as possible and we think these interactive panels have done just that. We’re incredibly pleased and excited about being able to give our audiences such a premium and fun experience.”

Dan Dawson, Chief Creative Technology Officer at Grand Visual commented:

“Digital Out of Home has come a long way. With the right team and a collaborative approach, it’s never been easier to produce engaging, responsive and interactive DOOH experiences – at scale.”

Samantha Sida, co-founder of Limited Space, added:

“It is always great to be part of a campaign that is designed specifically for the medium and our network. This campaign takes full advantage of the visual and audio properties of our large format, landscape digital screens and will actively connect and entertain shoppers as a result.”

Pepsi MAX’s Unbelievable campaign continued on the streets of London recently. In the cold and gloomy tunnels of London Bridge, Pepsi Max gave unsuspecting commuters an unbelievable experience using the latest in augmented reality and stereo projection technology. What at first appeared to be an ordinary tunnel quickly transformed to reveal giant portals in the space-time continuum, shocking and surprising passersby as prehistoric dinosaurs and futuristic cyborgs appeared out of thin air.

The creative concept was part of PepsiCo’s integrated campaign for the UK which brings Pepsi MAX’s Unbelievable combination of maximum taste AND no sugar to life. Grand Visual has worked on previous Unbelievable executions including an augmented reality DOOH first last year which transformed a digital 6-sheet Bus Stop giving the illusion of incredible scenarios unfolding on the street nearby.

To pull off this stunt, Grand Visual created a bespoke structure within the Tunnel which allowed them to manipulate the environment and bring to life the ‘time tunnel.’ The tunnel in London Bridge was surveyed and a scale 3D model was created, which was then used for extensive mapping and projection planning, to ensure the final execution would be as realistic as possible.

Projectors were strategically placed in the tunnel and a fine gauze partition was stretched inside the tunnel onto which the 3D animations of a dinosaur, car and cyborg were projected. Clever lighting, set dressing and perspective effects allowed for the technology to be hidden & the final effect to be startlingly realistic.

For more behind the scenes footage, and to see how we did it, click here:

For this year’s seasonal festivities our technologists, Jon Jones and Mike Farrance, have come up with a fun little bit of tech to get you — and our team — in the Christmas mood.

Meet Buddy, our Twitter powered dancing Santa. When you tweet our Twitter account (@GrandVisual) with the words Merry Christmas, Buddy will spring into action. First, from our office jukebox, he’ll select a Christmas song to dance to. He’ll then create a little seasonal greeting to display on a small digital screen behind him. A camera grabs a shot of the screen and Buddy dancing along to the music, before tweeting the photo to you accompanied by a message telling you what song he chose for our entertainment.

Buddy works with the help of some nifty programming and physical computing. The Santa is connected to an arduino controller which is controlled by a Raspberry Pi. The Pi monitors our Twitter account, watching for tweets containing the phrase Merry Christmas. When it picks one up it selects a song from our festive playlist, and creates a Christmas card to display on the screen, whilst at the same time telling Santa to start dancing. A photo is then taken of Santa, the screen, and the tree, which is then packaged up with information about what song was played and tweeted in reply. Pretty straightforward really!

The other benefit of Buddy is that because we save a little money on Christmas cards, we’ve decided to make a donation to the mental health charity Mind.

So, want to see our Santa dance? Then get tweeting to our little friend — just wish us a Merry Christmas.

Trinity Leeds – the only major shopping, dining and leisure destination to open in the UK this year is launching Trinity Kitchen, a unique indoor food hall offering a wide range of dining experiences. As part of the launch, a giant interactive video wall will also be unveiled, providing a range of touch-screen games, interactive ‘Wonder Experiences’ and a socially enabled Instagram photo wall.

The multi-purpose interactive channel encourages participants to use the touch-screen menu to search and explore the food related games, social media streams and Wonder Experiences. Shoppers can connect socially with #trinitykitchen, the live Instagram wall, where users can post photos and reviews of their dining experiences and others can rate their photos. The screen is updated instantly with the latest Instagram images delivered via OpenLoop, the Digital Outdoor campaign management dashboard.

Two food themed multi-player games ‘Pete’s a Toppin’ and ‘Guac-a-mole’ will encourage families to get involved, with different difficulty levels to suit all ages. ‘Pete’s a Toppin’ entices shoppers to help chef Pete make his pizzas in 60 seconds by hitting tasty ingredients whilst avoiding rogue toppings such as fish bones. The more pizzas made, the higher the score and the chance to make it onto the leader board which is broadcast to screens across the shopping centre. Players are also invited to enter an email address so they can be entered into a prize draw.

‘Guac-a-mole’ is a fast paced contest based in a Mexican Bar. Participants must whack the Guaca Gang of avocados that have escaped from the Crazy Chef. The more avocado characters splattered, the more guacamole, with bonus points for whacking hot chillies. Again, players with the highest scores will be added to the leader board and entered into a prize draw.

The Trinity Kitchen channel content and bespoke games were designed and built by Grand Visual, the production and creative technology partner for Trinity Leeds. The interactive wall is located in the heart of Trinity Kitchen and is intended to enrich the vibrant, urban, social eating space and provide information and entertainment alongside the regular live events.