Riders prepare for the off on the first day of the Kinetic Tour of Lombardy charity bike ride

The weekend of the 19th–20th September saw forty cyclists, including Grand Visual’s Founder Neil Morris, take part in Kinetic’s annual charity fundraising cycle ride. This year’s challenge was a two-day ride through the mountains of Lombardy which resulted in over £70,000 being raised for the Alzheimer’s Society.

The gluttons for punishment were led by Kinetic’s Chief Executive, Stuart Taylor, and included representatives of Kinetic, Clear Channel, MSIX, JCDecaux, MEC, Primesight, Mindshare, Maxus, the7stars, and Grand Visual.

A collage of photos from the Kinetic Tour of Lombardy charity bike ride raising funds for the Alzheimer's Society

The title “Kinetic Tour of Lombardy” belies the punishing nature of the ride — also known as “The Climber’s Classic” the route took the riders up some seriously steep inclines in damp and foggy conditions (as can be seen from the photos shown here). It was not going to be an easy weekend — in the words of our boss, “it was brutal” — but the team was committed to completing the tough mountain route for a worthy cause.

And their gruelling two days in the saddle were well-rewarded, because by the following week it was revealed that they had raised over £72,365 for the charity. Congratulations to all who participated, and to all those who helped the riders on their way.

A photo of the Dove Invisible Colour Recognition activation in action – Grand Visual, ground-breaking digital out of home production

Throughout July, Unilever used state of the art colour-recognition outdoor interactive poster sites to celebrate the launch of Dove Invisible Dry deodorant and its “100 colours” campaign.

In the first use by a beauty brand, the digital 6-sheet outdoor campaign featured colour recognition technology developed by Grand Visual. When a user stood in front of the screen the technology identified and captured the dominant colour they were wearing. The application applied this to the creative on the screen – changing it to reflect the colour of the clothes worn by the person. The concept tied in perfectly with the Dove campaign to encourage women to be colour confident by using new Dove Invisible Dry deodorant. Each digital “D6” unit delivered location specific messaging, directing consumers to the local Boots store in that shopping centre.

The campaign was planned and booked by Mindshare and Kinetic and ran in key shopping centres across UK, including Bluewater, Lakeside, Trinity Leeds, Centre MK and the Bullring. The activity formed part of a wider digital out-of-home campaign that delivered reach in fashion environments and in close proximity to relevant retailers.

Callum Galloway, Dove Deodorant Brand Manager said, “It is very exciting to be working on yet another ground breaking activation to bring to life the Dove Deodorant Invisible Dry campaign. Once again we are putting women right at the heart of our campaign and encouraging them to embrace colour confidence.”

Dan Dawson, Creative Technology Director at Grand Visual added, “This innovative use of colour detection technology is a perfect fit with the campaign messaging talking about the product’s use on 100 colours. We delivered messaging tailored to the very clothes a person in front of the D6 screen was wearing, creating a fun, powerful and engaging experience.”

 

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A still of the animated artwork for the new Lynx deodorant cans

Every six years or so, the iconic Lynx deodorant can gets a redesign, so this June, saw the reveal of a brand new can design dubbed Polaris.

The launch of new “squound” (as in, both square, and round) design was accompanied by a linear digital out of home campaign that ran on digital escalator panels around London.

Creative featured the various iterations of the new can (Peace, Apollo, Dark Temptation, and Excite) amidst swirling light trails accompanied by the phrase “All new Lynx. Upgraded.”

The media agency was Kinetic, digital production was by Grand Visual, and the media owner is Exterion Media.

The 2012/13 UK Digital Out of Home Handbook is now available. Published by Grand Visual and Kinetic, the handbook provides comprehensive media, technical and creative information for all UK networks.

The Handbook, now in its fourth edition, offers 35 newly released formats and over 3,700 new sites installed. Also new to this edition is a section to address the increased availability and demand for interactivity over the last year. The Interactivity section covers a growing number of screens and networks that have permanent camera-based, touch or mobile interactive technologies thanks to continued investment by media owners.

The Handbook offers a universal reference point for all those involved in the planning, creation and execution of Digital Out of Home advertising. Check it out online here or as a 209-page manual from Kinetic or Grand Visual.

Grand Visual, have launched Accelerator with out of home communications agency Kinetic Worldwide as it’s first partner. Accelerator is designed to facilitate the entire creative and production process from campaign specification and copy validation, through to final delivery. Kinetic UK will recommend the use of the service on all their UK digital out-of-home business.

Accelerator is a media management and workflow platform designed to automate the process of receiving, ingesting, cataloguing, validating and distributing digital outdoor copy to media owners. It simplifies this process by handling the workflow and communicating with all stakeholders involved at each stage in the DOOH ad cycle.

Accelerator manages the initial communication of campaign formats and dates, the compliance process required by certain networks and then validates the final copy against the format specifications for each scheduled network. If necessary, Accelerator is also capable of adjusting, reformatting and converting incorrectly submitted files. Finally, Accelerator distributes the approved copy to the relevant media owners complete with detailed play out instructions whilst providing a full audit trail for clients and agencies.

Kinetic are in discussions concerning rolling out Accelerator across Europe in the next few months and globally by 2012. Kinetic and Grand Visual have previously collaborated on the UK’s first ever DOOH Handbook providing comprehensive media, technical and creative information for UK networks.

Results from Kinetic’s digital out-of-home research proved that twice as many people looked at the digital poster for an average of 60% longer than the static poster. At times, this figure rose to three times as many people looking for twice as long.

In partnership with Titan Outdoor, the trial compared a digital panel and a printed backlit 6 sheet poster in close proximity to each other at London Bridge mainline station and used cameras and tracking technology from Tru Media. Grand Visual produced three different executions specifically for the test which promoted TIGI’s ‘Foxy Curls’ product from its BedHead hair care range. The first was static; the second consisted of an animated 3D model of the product foregrounded with copy animation as reinforcement, the third where all aspects of the artwork had movement.

The research showed that while basic animation (the second version) increases the number of people viewing the poster by almost 30%, further animation (the third version) does not necessarily lead to further engagement. A loop of advertisers attracts the most glances for the longest time, suggesting that a regular change in creative style and content keeps people interested.

Neil Morris, MD of Grand Visual commented:

“We were pleased with the results which support the superior stand out and engagement of digital posters. We were also pleased that the study reinforced what we already know about what works best creatively in this environment.”