The 50th anniversary of the Kinsale Shark advertising festival took place last weekend by the banks of the River Bandon. The international advertising, media and design community descended on Kinsale, the medieval Irish town, to attend one of the oldest independent advertising festivals in the world.

The festival jury panel, chaired by Trevor Beattie, loved Grand Visual’s work for the National Centre for Domestic Violence and also for the Microloan Foundation. Microloan’s ‘Pennies for Life’ achieved 5 gongs in total including 4 gold’s for International Outdoor Craft (Best Interactive), International Integrated Campaign, International Live Event, and Digital Outdoor, as well as a bronze in the Physical Digital category.

Bartle Bogle Hegarty’s ‘say it to get it’ outdoor campaign for Google won gold at last night’s Campaign Big Awards. The digital outdoor element was produced by Grand Visual and it included real time, destination specific digital OOH activity powered by Grand Visual’s OpenLoop platform.

The first burst of activity ran on DEPs across 10 underground stations. The campaign played on regional accents and phonetically spelt out various pronunciations of the same word. The copy was also station specific so at Bank, a multi-screen execution ran variations of the word finance such as ‘fey-nuns’ and ‘fy-nants’.

The second burst of the campaign began on the 11th April and ran on Transvision screens at 9 London stations. This time the copy ties in with the destination of the next departing train. Various pronunciations of the destinations were screened including illustrations relating to that place. So for Mon-chester there is an illustration of Old Trafford and for Ed-n-uh-bru, bag pipes are displayed. The strapline “say it get it, voice search for mobile, by Google” remained on screen throughout.

The campaign was designed to demonstrate the Google Voice’s superior voice activation software which understands anyone from anywhere regardless of accent. The campaign was delivered via OpenLoop, Grand Visual’s tactical platform for updating and streaming live copy campaigns to multiple screens.

This is the third year that digital out-of-home has been allowed its own category within the Outdoor Lions. There were 109 entries overall from 31 countries with the UK providing 12 of them (the USA had the most entries at 18). The jury was led by Olivier Altmann (Chief Creative Officer, Publicis Worldwide) and featured Ed Morris (ECD, Rapier) as the UK representative. From the 109 entries, the jury selected 9 submissions for the shortlist – with the UK supplying the greatest number (3) from one market. The other markets were Brazil, Korea, France, China, Argentina and Germany.

The type of creative work entered into the competition was almost exclusively interactive or data-driven in some way. There were examples of touch screen activity, motion sensing, social and mobile interaction and transit destination or timetable integration. There were surprisingly few augmented reality applications particularly if one excludes the AR campaigns on a mobile phone (more on that later).

There were two key themes that became clear across the 109 entries. Projection was a popular medium for delivering an experience or creating a canvas. And secondly, some form of mobile activation was a common ingredient to campaigns.

The UK won three Bronze Lions. Publicis was awarded for its “12-second strip” campaign, which consisted of a challenge to the public to strip from their winter to summer clothes in the amount of time it takes to fold up the roof of the Renault Wind Roadster – 12 secs. OgilvyOne’s Bronze came for its Terminal 5 based “Lotus Knows” campaign for IBM which delivered Wimbledon tennis match updates most relevant to departing flights. The final UK Bronze was for the absolutely wonderful Lynx “Angel Ambush” activity conceived by Mindshare Invention and created by Grand Visual and Mind’s Eye Media.

A Silver was won by Jung von Matt’s “Transparent Walls” for Daimler in which a camera feed of the street around a corner was projected on a wall at the corner allowing drivers to see “through the wall”. The other Silver was awarded to a hysterical campaign from Argentina called “Andes Friend Recovery” and created by Del Campo Nazca Saatchi & Saatchi for Anheuser-Busch. The execution allowed a user via webcam to project their face onto the face of a “robot” sitting in a bar so that you can be with your mates AND with your girlfriend at home …

On to the winner – this will sound a little like sour grapes. Cheil Worldwide’s “Virtual Store” campaign for Tesco Homeplus walked off with a Gold Lion for its campaign to extend the reach of the grocery chain. It’s clearly a great piece of work which delivered on its objectives but it isn’t what is commonly thought of as digital outdoor. Have a look. It’s good old fashioned, traditional, printed outdoor with QR codes leading to a transactional and fulfilment relationship via the user’s smartphone. A nice demonstration of outdoor’s endless opportunities. But it still isn’t digital outdoor. Perhaps the jury was confused. Perhaps we should rejoice that there is a blurring of the boundaries. Next year I think we’ll enter some digital outdoor activity in the Radio Lions and see where we get to.

It was telling that 9 of the 12 UK entries used permanent digital out-of-home formats for delivering their campaigns. This seemed a much higher percentage than from other markets. As part of Clear Channel’s Young Lions masterclass, Mattias Palm-Jensen (Chief Innovation Officer, McCann Erickson) had stressed the need to move from “stunt” to scalable ideas and campaigns. Perhaps the UK is moving along the right path.

Finally, it was great to see the cream of the UK’s outdoor community networking hard at the Gutter Bar way past their bedtime – that’s dedication!

The inaugural Unilever Awards for Outstanding Communication were held last night at the Museum of London. The awards were set up to to recognise campaigns that have delivered both innovative and effective communication for Unilever brands in the past year. Lynx brought home a Gold in the Outdoor/Press category for the DOOH campaign, and scooped a bonus Bronze in the Best Integrated campaign category.

The ‘Lynx Rise’ campaign employed a multi platform DOOH campaign including two bespoke Digi Walls to promote “Lynx Rise Morning Shower Gel” back in May 2010. The multi screen DEP execution featured four different women all holding name cards followed by a question posed on the fifth screen “who was the girl in the hot pants?” Following each question the screens synchronise to hose down the viewer and state “Wake up and stay alert.” The questions posed changed regularly to test the viewers recall and the final frame included product shot and link http://facebook.com/lynxeffectuk”>facebook.com/lynxeffectuk. The campaign was also supported with 2 CBS DIGIwall concepts developed by GV at Oxford Circus and Angel.

Dan Dawson, the Digital Director behind the campaign
“It’s great recognition for a great campaign. We were part of the campaign creative planning from the very beginning of this brief, and that certainly helped to shape the creative to fit the media plan, while delivering an innovative bespoke solution.”

The multi panel digital outdoor campaign for Rocky Balboa won the digital category at last nights Campaign Poster Advertising Awards.

The campaign, which creatively mimics the iconic film sequence where Rocky runs up the stairs of the Philadelphia Museum of Art during one of his punishing training regimes, ran on CBS Outdoor’s Digital Escalator Panels.

The sequence took 11 separate panel executions and gives the impression that the boxing legend is running up the escalators alongside London’s commuters.

Also shortlisted for the digital category was Grand Visual’s campaign for Sega’s Virtua Tennis 3.

Grand Visual has created a multi-screen outdoor digital campaign for 20th Century Fox’s film title Rocky Balboa. As an exclusive launch partner for the roll-out of CBS Outdoors expanded screen network this month, 20th Century Fox’s Rocky Balboa campaign can be seen across the network from the 1st until the 14th January.

The campaign creatively mimics the iconic film sequence where Rocky is running up stairs during one of his punishing training regimes. The creative consists of 11 separate panel executions and gives the impression that the boxing legend is running up the escalators alongside London’s commuters.

As part of CBS Outdoor and 20th Century Fox’s partnership, Grand Visual has also created separate campaigns for film titles Eragon and Night at the Museum all booked through outdoor specialist Gen. The launch deal represents a significant commitment from a film and entertainment brand to this new outdoor digital format.

Duncan Twells from 20th Century Fox commented: “At 20th Century Fox we are continually striving to explore and trial new and progressive media platforms. The Rocky creative effectively retains the attention of London’s commuters as the boxing legend jogs alongside them on the escalators.”

Nick Maddison from outdoor specialist Gen OMI commented: “Using a content specialist for this platform is essential and Grand Visual has provided the knowledge and expertise to create teasers that make the best use of this innovative medium”.

The Campaign Poster Advertising Awards seek to reward the best examples of harnessing the enduring power of the oldest universal medium. The winners reflect the amazing variety of advertising people encounter when they close their front door – on the street, from a bus, in a bus, train or taxi, or waiting for any of them. It’s also on buildings, in sports grounds, airports – literally all around us.

The fact that posters are rapidly becoming the last great broadcast medium has already become such an advertising cliche; that it’s easy to overlook the full import of what this really means. While almost all other media are facing issues of audience fragmentation, the potency of a poster campaign remains undiminished. Outdoor, as it is known in the UK, has never been stronger and has earned its place in a world of fragmented media with new structures, new technologies and interest from new advertisers.The Campaign Poster Advertising Awards reflect the variety and vibrancy of the medium. The jury is made up of creative people, clients and members of the poster industry. To their great credit, the jurors never allow themselves to be seduced by brilliant but irrelevant creativity. They acknowledge that the only kind of outdoor creativity that matters is the sort that sells by making the most of the medium.

Best Digital Outdoor Advertisement (formats such as plasma and LED screens and monitors in retail areas such as supermarkets, shops, salons, malls and transport-related areas such as stations, airports, buses, taxis, motorway service stations. Ads must have an element of animation; static shots on digital screens are not eligible for this category. Ads can be mute or with sound. The innovative nature of the project entered should be explained in no more than 100 words (there is an ‘Explanation’ text box in the online entry pages) and be accompanied by a picture that shows clearly the execution of the concept on paid-for space or sites (this can be uploaded at the same time you upload your entry). The minimum spend level is £5,000. Entries should be in Quicktime or MPG formats or Flash file formats.