augmented reality Archives - Page 3 of 4

At Grand Visual we are always searching for new, creative uses of technology and original campaigns. The intention of this new monthly instalment is so you get to know people from GV a little better. Each month varying people from around the business will be sharing things that we’ve worked on and loved, new technology we’ve been looking at and thoughts on how it could be applied within digital OOH.

LEGO Star Wars – COLLINS, SYSTEMS ADMINISTRATOR

“The cool aspects of the Star Wars movies was being able to use “the force” (telekinesis) to move things around and of course the space battles.

With this game, it has incorporated both aspects and combined it in an organic way. If you’re feeling heroic you can select the light side and help build lego ships to defeat the evil empire and if you want your inner Darth Vader to be revealed you can join the empire and help defeat the rebels.

What I found about the game was how smooth the camera was able to capture you and your movements. The icon would snap to your marker and the longer you held it the more points you gained.

The sound /effects also play a big part as it helps to make you more engaged in the game and you find yourself becoming quite competitive especially when playing with others.

There’s also a nice little selfie you can take of yourself with the characters which I think kids will love.”

All about real-time motion capture – STEVE, CREATIVE

“Real-time motion control systems are extremely close to becoming an affordable reality. Whilst researching for a brief that came in, I’ve found some really interesting products.

A small team in Cambridge, England worked on the motion capture for a PS4 game called Hellblade. Seeing the game I thought the motion capture was amazing… now I’ve learnt that it can be done in real-time!”

The real-time motion capture behind ‘Hellblade’ – endgadget

Qlone; 3D scanning app – ADAM, MGFX DESIGNER

creativity digital ooh

“This 3D modelling technology is incredibly cool. To go from clunky scanners to a super-fast, scalable, real-time app is quite unbelievable. And the fact that you can use the AR view to beam your models back into the real world feels very futuristic.

It’s really exciting thinking about how this technology can be applied on a larger scale in digital OOH. Because the app is so quick, it could potentially improve production speeds or even be gamified.”

Key features of Qlone scanning app – Qlone

Evolution of the World Cup ball – RIC, CREATIVE DIRECTOR

“For all those wrapped up in World Cup fever, did you ever wonder why the design of the football looks the way it does?

Well… even if you hadn’t thought about it, here’s a lovely bit of motion graphics from the people at The Guardian, in one of their great explainer videos.”

T-model to Telstar 18: the evolution of the World Cup ball – video explainer – The Guardian

AR demo integrating with real-world objects – ED, PRODUCER

“If some people are willing to make long treks to obscure places to catch rare Pokemon, why not go one step further and have them run around to try and catch them when they get there? Looking at Niantic’s latest demo at least it seems that could be the case.

What makes this demo particularly exciting of course is that the technology driving this is more aware of the environment, particularly the depth (or z-axis) allowing the Pokemon (or whatever augmented item is placed in the scene) to be obscured by any real-world object that is placed between it and the camera. Up until now, a common problem is that the illusion of augmented reality can be easily broken by such objects and so special consideration to avoid this had to be made when designing AR experiences. With this limitation potentially removed more exciting opportunities that were never possible before could become an option.”

Niantic shows off a stunning AR demo that lets Pikachu hide behind real-world objects – The Verge

This article first appeared on Contagious on 22nd May 2018.

Ric Albert, creative director at Grand Visual, explains how film studios are raising the bar with exceptionally creative uses of digital outdoor.

Ten years ago, digital out-of-home was in its infancy; a blank canvas yet to be painted with the exciting content we see today. Film marketing was still very much focusing on the traditional channels of TV, print and OOH; video-on-demand and pre-roll ads had only just started to appear. In fact, online was where film marketing first started experimenting creatively. However, as the functionality and scale of Digital OOH has expanded, so too, has the way in which entertainment brands use it.

Fast forward 10 years, and things have changed dramatically. Today, digital inventory has given OOH film campaigns a new lease of life, adding some movie magic to outdoor executions. Now marketeers can run trailers and video content on the street, introduce characters, plot teasers, or run live-action sequences, direct from the film to whet the public’s appetite. Digital OOH has become the ideal advertising channel for the entertainment industry.

Shifting the needle

There’s been experimentation. It started in 2006 with Rocky Balboa running up the first digital escalator panels on London Underground, changing the way we thought about multi-panel creative. It continued with Legend of the Guardians, which saw a campaign pioneering subtle motion on roadside screens, a motion format that’s now an international standard.

In 2011, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 streamed its world premiere live to DOOH screens. Then there was the Jurassic World execution at Waterloo, which combined, traditional OOH, station wraps, Digital OOH and experiential. And a variety of AR and VR activations were used across the world for the release of supernatural horror IT.

There is real momentum to this creative evolution, and advertisers are changing the way they create and use OOH media. From static branding channel to high impact PR vehicle, DOOH now live streams worldwide premieres, provides immersive augmented reality events and delivers iconic treatments tailored for iconic buildings, environments and screen locations. Now OOH can be engaging, immersive, participatory, integrated and scalable.

Scaling interaction

Connecting with film fans on a deeper level is now achievable. Digital OOH offers interaction via a multitude of creative technology solutions. A campaign for Dr Strange opened up live portals between sunny Los Angeles and rainy London, and allowed people to warp the world in front of them. An AR campaign for Batman v Superman allowed participants across several markets to become their favourite superhero. And these aren’t just one-off special builds, we’re seeing interactive campaigns becoming more scalable: it’s now possible to produce engaging, responsive experiences seamlessly across borders and markets.

The digitisation of OOH has also enabled outdoor creative to become firmly embedded in the broader digital strategy, playing a central role in an omnichannel execution. The power of social media and its influence over box office results means that OOH can be a great conduit for driving audiences online, and vice versa. Digital outdoor activations can be crafted to generate shareable content for garnering audiences online.

For the recent launch of season 7 of Game of Thrones, dramatic fan reactions posted on social channels were shared moments later on digital screens across the UK, tapping into the buzz and excitement of the show whilst delivering a powerful UGC endorsement. Interestingly, Digital OOH has also begun to influence other channels, with its content nowadays seen at movie premieres and press junkets, as well as within online banner creative and social feeds.

Digital OOH’s presence and ubiquity in cities around the world is also part of its allure to the film and entertainment industries. Film campaigns demand an international rollout, and as DOOH spend overtakes traditional OOH revenue in markets around the world, this has forced us to change our approach. Nowadays scalability is vital to production processes, so now we use master creative toolkits and flexible creative that can adapt to all the different shapes, sizes, durations, environments and audiences of the screens we’re faced with.

To give you an idea of that scale, in 2017 we delivered over 12,500 files to 52 markets, from Guatemala to Kazakhstan. Localisation and delivery become paramount, as does sophisticated ad-serving technology from QDOT. Now multiple markets can take advantage of a toolkit of creative rather than the traditional siloed approach.

So, what next? It’s undeniable that Digital OOH has become a major marketing channel for film studios and entertainment brands. Moreover, the film industry has become a major driving force for the continued development and evolution of global Digital OOH campaigns.

Now that the production processes have been nailed and the intelligent ad-serving infrastructure is in place, we expect to see truly global campaigns that deliver local relevance become the new standard. Combined with tactical, interactive and cross-channel strategies, the marriage between film marketing and digital OOH looks set to blossom.

An interactive digital OOH campaign for clinique's new chubby, plump & shine liquid lipstick

In May this year, Estée Lauder implemented an interactive digital OOH experience as part of their campaign celebrating the launch of Clinique’s new Chubby Plump and Shine liquid lip gloss.

The campaign, featured in Birmingham and Manchester, used an Augmented Reality experience to give passers by the opportunity to star in their own personalised Clinique Chubby Plump and Shine advertisement. Produced by Grand Visual, the experience was created by layering a pink filter over the busy street. Using in-built camera technology, it would pick up when people stepped into the frame and draw a love heart around them with the featured lip gloss.

The successful digital OOH campaign captured and maintained the attention of people for longer than any other campaign running at that time, recording significantly higher engagement.

The campaign planned and booked by Talon, with production by Grand Visual, using The Loop’s camera technology from Signature Outdoor.

Lay’s, the classic potato chip brand, is rolling out a social video featuring shoppers having fun with an Interactive AR poster at a busy mall in Madrid. The video captures participants using the touch-screen poster to create hilarious football themed “Cheer of Champions” selfies for online and social sharing.

Produced by Grand Visual, the DOOH execution mimics Lay’s’ Snapchat Lens, allowing participants to select one of Lay’s new crisp pack-designs to match their team’s shirt colour. Other real-time animations such as beards, brows and face paint can then be added.

The Lens layers the effects to give the impression that the participant is wearing their team’s shirt against the backdrop of a busy football stadium. Users can then take photos of their humorous football poster, and moment of fame, and share their selfie online with friends and family.

To create the interactive experience a digital 6 sheet was transformed with a custom touch-screen hardware build from Grand Visual, including facial recognition technology, real-time motion tracking and augmented reality software, to enable the layering of ‘facial effects’.

DRUM captured footage from the mall stunt in a video which has been shared on Lay’s’ International Facebook and YouTube channels.

The DOOH activation was planned and booked by Talon and OMD International and supports a broader outdoor and multichannel push from Lay’s this month.

Aman Matharu, at PepsiCo commented:

“DOOH is the perfect platform for bringing our popular Lay’s Cheering bags activity to Out of Home audiences, in a fun, accessible and memorable way. We have also tapped into the most popular mobile app of the moment whilst harnessing the excitement and anticipation for Europe’s most revered sporting event, is a great way of driving relevance and buzz, whilst creating assets that can extend the life of the campaign online.”

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

“Digital Out of Home can deliver personal and engaging experiences that get people interacting with your brand in a fun and engaging way. Lay’s have produced a DOOH activation that can also be shared online, further extending the reach and impact of the campaign and integrating the activity within their broader digital strategy.”

As part of the ‘Disney Junior Magical Moments’ campaign, Disney Junior Asia has released a social video today featuring footage from an Augmented Reality stunt that was unleashed on the streets of Singapore. The video captures the surprise and delight of families and little ones as they pass by the converted bus shelter and are transported into the magical world of Disney Junior, appearing alongside their favourite characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, The Lion Guard, Sofia the First, and Miles from Tomorrowland.

The Augmented Reality stunt took place on a busy street in the Singapore suburb of Tampines where a bus shelter was transformed overnight using ‘pixie dust’, plus a small dose of creative technology and Augmented Reality production by Grand Visual. The result was a live poster giving the illusion of the road ahead. But as people watched, a series of beloved Disney Junior characters appeared on the street in front of them. Exciting scenarios unfold, as spaceships land, mermaids swim past, and fairies fly overhead. Mickey Mouse invites passers-by to pose for a picture with him, and Sofia the First asks onlookers to “come spin” as she pirouettes across the path ahead.

Mickey Mouse also makes a surprise appearance in real life at the bus stop and a film crew were on hand to capture the public’s reaction. The footage from the live two-day Augmented Reality event has been shared on Disney’s online and social media channels.

https://youtu.be/zyMqAOaIHU8

The creative concept is part of Disney Junior Asia’s integrated campaign bringing to life and celebrating “Magical Moments” on the channel throughout September. Outdoor media was booked directly by Disney and is supported by their broader television, digital, and press campaign.

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

“It is always great to work with Disney, an adventurous brand willing to push the boundaries of technology and storytelling in the digital space. We know from our own research that fun, interactive brand experiences – or ‘Disney Junior Magical Moments’ – create longer lasting and more accessible memories. This compelling Augmented Reality event has created assets that are gaining momentum online for maximum exposure.”

A photo of the augmented reality DOOH execution at Canary Wharf London, part of the Sunset Overdrive global launch campaign

Xbox is using augmented reality DOOH in a global campaign to promote the launch of new open world game, Sunset Overdrive.

Conceived by Xbox and Empowering Media, and produced by Grand Visual, the campaign sees augmented reality (AR) DOOH executions taking place in San Francisco, London, and Melbourne during the week of the game’s worldwide launch.

Available exclusively on Xbox One, Sunset Overdrive is a stylised open-world shooter set in the fictional metropolis of Sunset City in the year 2027. The game requires players to transform the open-world into their tactical playground by grinding, vaulting and wall-running across the city while using a devastating, unconventional arsenal to save Sunset City starting 28th October.

The creative for the campaign draws on key aspects of Sunset Overdrive’s story and gameplay to create a digital out of home AR experience that conveys the dynamism and excitement of the game. Each of the three international activations is based on a similar concept, but creative has been tailored to the specific country, location, and screen environment.

The San Francisco activity — launched on 27th October and active for four weeks — appears on ten of Clear Channel Outdoor’s touch-screen equipped bus shelters. One screen features an augmented reality activation that shows mutants appearing to run amok in the street. Bus travellers are drawn into the world of the game as hordes of mutants appear to jump off the rooftops and out of the windows onto the sidewalk adjacent to the bus shelter. Creative also features an image of energy drink Overcharge Delirium XT (a key element of the game’s backstory), the game poster, and release date information.

The remaining nine San Francisco sites are touch screen sites displaying exclusive game content. Users are able to interact with the screen to select the content they wish to see.

“The Xbox team was thrilled with the opportunity to provide a truly immersive experience for our fans, bringing the open world of Sunset City into the real world in a unique, compelling and memorable way,” said Julie Lowe, Xbox Group Marketing Manager, Global MarCom.

In the UK, activity is taking place at Canary Wharf where Grand Visual has worked with Dentsu Aegis Network, JCDecauxLive, and Russell Signs to create a special build site that incorporates a large LCD screen into a purpose built crate. Creative for the UK activity features four different augmented reality concepts played in a loop. Much like the San Francisco AR activation, members of the public are presented with an immersive experience in which game characters appear to come to life in front of their eyes. The UK activity started 27th October and continues until 31st October.

The Australian element of the campaign will feature a single augmented reality DOOH execution on a JCDecaux Innovate screen situated in Melbourne’s Southern Cross Station. Again, the creative will feature the mutant horde, but this time members of the public will think they are looking through a window and witnessing the mutant mob overrun the station. That activity will run from 30th October through to 3rd November, coinciding with the popular gaming Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) at the Melbourne Convention Centre.

Speaking about the global campaign, Dan Dawson, Creative Technology Director of Grand Visual, said:

What this campaign demonstrates is that the proliferation of interactive screens offers brands and agencies an international canvas for creating engaging digital out-of-home campaigns. This campaign has made full use of Grand Visual’s global teams, our knowledge of the worldwide DOOH landscape, and our experience in interactivity and augmented reality. The result is multiple immersive activations, born from a single concept, that will be experienced by people on three continents simultaneously.

A photo of the Into The Storm augmented reality billboard – Grand Visual, digital out of home production

Roadshow Films reveals a digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaign as part of a multi-media promotion to launch the new natural disaster film Into the Storm, released in Australia on 4 September 2014. Directed by Stephen Quale (Final Destination 5), Into the Storm focuses on the inhabitants of the town of Silverton as it is ravaged by an unprecedented onslaught of tornadoes.

In a first for Australian digital outdoor media, Roadshow Films commissioned the augmented reality (AR) campaign featuring tornados ripping through Sydney streets. The creative concept was conceived and produced by Grand Visual; OMD was responsible for booking media through JCDecaux Australia.

Passers-by thought they were looking at a normal road and cityscape ahead. Live video footage of the street was blended with pre-created motion graphics, in real-time, to create a seamless AR execution that gave shoppers and passers-by a visceral, and memorable, experience.

Taking advantage of the busy thoroughfare around the Chinatown area of Sydney, the dramatic AR campaign appears on a 64” plasma screen located within the DOOH JCDecaux Australia asset. On-screen, what seems to be a static poster for the new movie – suddenly begins to flutter loose in a progressively rising wind. As the poster is “ripped away” from the frame, and gets caught up in the violent gusts, the viewer sees a realistic storm scene coming towards them. Sequences include a lamp post falling onto a group of people across the street, a car being flipped up into the air and thrown into the billboard leaving the screen with a large crack. Finally the storm fills the screen with debris flying around and, as the tornado “moves on”, the resultant “devastated” street is left with overturned cars and burning buildings.

Ric Albert, Digital Director of Grand Visual said, “The opportunities now created by digital out of home technology enable us to create one-of-a-kind immersive outdoor experiences that really grab attention. In this case, using augmented reality to pull a city street corner into the eye of a tornado creates a level of engagement that static outdoor media can’t match — it becomes a talking point, and gives people a taste of the experience that Into the Storm brings to the cinema.”

Rob Moore, Deputy Marketing Director of Roadshow Films commented, “We pride ourselves on working with world class talent, no matter where they’re from in the world. We’ve partnered with UK based Grand Visual and JCDecaux Australia to launch Into the Storm with an innovative AR campaign.”

Steve O’Conner, CEO of JCDecaux, Australia added: “The Into the Storm campaign is a perfect example of how we operate as a business, out-of-the-box technology coupled with unique audience engagement opportunities. It’s fantastic to see advertisers using JCDecaux assets as creative canvases that bring big ideas to life both on and offline”.

Watch here

As the most talked about OOH campaign this year so far– Pepsi MAX’s Unbelievable bus shelter has gone way beyond its DOOH roots and on to garner global interest via 5.5 million Youtube hits and international news coverage. The story has generated column inches as far afield as Mexico and China and was broadcast on popular news channels CNN and the BBC.

This perfectly crafted campaign was the result of a collaborative team, created by AMV BBDO, planned and booked by OMD and Talon, with creative technology and digital production by Grand Visual.

Earlier this month, the BBC Click team visited GV Towers where LJ Rich caught up with Dan to discuss all things Augmented Reality and how best to use the technology to generate engaging Out of Home experiences.

Pepsi MAX Bus Shelter Augmented Reality interactive digital OOH

Pepsi MAX has launched the next stage of their ‘Unbelievable’ campaign, with a cutting-edge DOOH stunt which revolutionises how we see city streets.

Pepsi MAX AR Bus Shelter Balloons

The technology, which is currently exclusive to Pepsi MAX, was launched on one of London’s busiest roads, New Oxford Street. A Bus Stop digital 6-sheet was transformed to show a live feed of the street ahead and give the illusion of a see-through display. However, as people wait and watch, a series of incredible scenarios unfold on the street, instantly whisking Londoners away from their ordinary environment and placing them into something completely unbelievable. Commuters could be faced with a giant robot crashing through Oxford Street, or catch a glimpse of a passerby being abducted by flying saucers.

This creative concept is part of PepsiCo’s integrated campaign for the UK which brings Pepsi MAX’s ‘Unbelievable’ combination of maximum taste AND no sugar to life. It follows another media-first from Pepsi MAX in February which saw consumer generated Vines integrated across DOOH sites. The latest stage of the campaign, planned by OMD UK, bought by Talon, created by AMV BBDO, with production and creative technology by Grand Visual: combines the DOOH platform with state of the art augmented reality technology.

Pepsi MAX AR Bus Shelter Robot

The content created on Oxford Street has been caught on video and seen over 8 million times!

Downtown Disney launched an entertaining augmented reality game that brought to life the popular cartoon duo Phineas and Ferb. The large interactive installation at Downtown Disney West Side invited crowds to join the ‘toon world and interact with the animated characters on screen.

Grand Visual built the AR system and developed 20 engaging experiences that allowed kids to virtually interact with the shows main characters. Participants stood in the zone and looked up to see themselves on the big screen where they could sword fight, play baseball and dance with Phineas, Ferb, Perry and Dr Doofinsmirtz. Kids could then pose for a photo with their favourite character for a permanent memento of the experience.

Photos were automatically uploaded to the phineasandferbandyou.com microsite where guests could then retrieve and share images via Facebook and Twitter. During the 3 month run at Downtown Disney, the AR installation achieved approximately 30,000 interactions. 26,000 viewed their photos online, where 25,000 downloaded it. A further 3,000 shared their image direct to Facebook from the site, where the images were seen by a further 470,000 people.

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