Zevi Tilles Account Director Grand Visual. Winning an ABBI award for Good Omens 2019
Our US Account Director, Zevi Tilles, shares the awesome year he has had so far since joining the team at Grand Visual.

Zevi Tilles Account Director Grand Visual. Winning an ABBI award for Good Omens 2019

Every year starts with a clean slate. In business, our clean slate is a (relatively) empty spreadsheet, ready to be filled in with activity and results. For me personally, 2019 turned out to be a very special year for a handful of reasons.

Joining the talented and supportive team at Grand Visual and reconnecting with the fast-paced OOH industry has been especially fulfilling. For OOH, 2019 has been a time of explosive growth and evolution. Reports from the OAAA showed that spending in OOH increased by 7.7% year-on-year in Q2 2019, representing the highest rate of quarterly growth since 2007. I believe this is solely down to the affordable and unskippable nature of the medium and its brilliant canvas for creativity.

Before I knew it, it was May and I was jetting out to Las Vegas to attend the OAAA and Geopath’s National Convention & Expo with our CCO Dan Dawson and COO Ben Putland. The conference was buzzing with excitement and anticipation as the industry came together to celebrate the medium. The renaissance and reinvigoration that comes with bigger investment and a greater of total advertising spend was a hot topic of conversation.

Also in May and easily winning my favourite day of the year, was the campaign we did for Amazon’s Good Omens launch. Who else can say that they brought Armageddon to Times Square, one of the industry’s most iconic locations where a staggering 380,000 people pass through each day? 

As the end of the world unfolded in the square, there was magic and excitement in the air. Mother nature was also on our side and even supplied a brief thunderstorm! From this four hour execution, we managed to own a huge 5% of all social conversations during the show’s launch week.

My next highlight for the year came in August when we worked on an awesome project for jetBlue. What a whirlwind of a project, we went from initial briefing to getting the campaign live in just 9 weeks – not bad for a project of this size with huge creative ambition. It was an extremely rewarding project to get across the line. Working with Rapport and Mullenlowe, we produced “Escape the Cape,” a dynamic digital OOH campaign, targeting vacationers stuck in Cape Cod traffic.

The campaign used real-time API’s and JetBlue’s flight schedule to compare Cape Cod driving times to flight times for alternative destinations. The campaign even ran on the side of a mobile billboard on a truck – an industry first!

Zevi Tilles Grand Visual Ben Putland MediaPost Digital OOH Awards

The final highlight of my year has been attending and winning at the OBIEs, ABBIs and MediaPost Awards. It has been great to be recognised by these awards programs for our awesome work on Spider-Verse,  Google Explore and Good Omens. There’s nothing better than being rewarded for the hard work that goes into each digital OOH campaign.

I can honestly say that I always have a smile on my face as I go to work every day and help to entertain consumers during their day-to-day lives, whether it be during the commute or on a shopping trip. I’m proud to work for a company like Grand Visual, who is constantly raising the bar for creativity and globally supporting the growth of digital OOH.

I can confidently predict that 2020 will be a year of impressive creativity and technology.

If you’re looking to craft some stories for digital OOH or you’d just like to find out more about the medium, then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

 

Creative DOOH session IAB Nonference. Grand Visual Creative Director Ric Albert leads.
At Grand Visual we have been crafting stories for digital OOH for over 14 years. Yesterday, we had the opportunity to share our approach with a room full of enthusiastic Nonference attendees. 

In our #InstaDOOH session with Talon & QDOT we had our creative director Ric Albert guide a brainstorm session where he pushed participants to think about the ads they see on their phones through a DOOH lens. 

We kicked off the session by introducing our audience of non-DOOH natives to the channel, demonstrating its reach and impact across the UK. Results released by the Ad Association on 29th October showed that digital OOH spend increased by 17.2% and OOH rose by 9.4%. A growing channel is great, however a growing channel needs to be matched with the same level of creative ambition.

Creative DOOH Nonference

Multiple studies over the years have proven that when contextually relevant creative is utilised, it boosts campaign effectiveness (Talon Context Effect, Rapport Standing on shoulders of Giants). 

Creative DOOH Nonference

In addition to the ability to deliver live, dynamic creative stories, one of the other great advancements in OOH in the last few years is the way that we are able to target OOH audiences. Instead of looking just at location and demographic targeting, OOH planners are able to plan media campaigns using a much richer data set that is similar to audience profiling used in traditional digital channels. 

The brainstorm session aimed to get our attendees to adopt our ‘audience, moment, message’ mantra in order to understand the value of dynamically optimised creative in DOOH. To do so, we had everyone pull out their phones, go to Instagram, find their first ad and discuss at their respective tables what audience, moment and message each of those ads had identified.

Creative DOOH Nonference

Our Nonference audience was diverse and had ads from the NHS, Glossier, Moonlight Cinema, Jet2 Holidays, Just Eat and Nested to name a few. Once our tables had selected their favourite ad, we had them translate them into a powerful and contextually relevant digital OOH campaign. Could they do it?! 

At the end of 40 minutes, each of our 5 teams had come up with really great creative ideas for Digital OOH.  

We’ll leave the final word to the days’ host, Ric Albert, Creative Director:

“All of the concepts presented were really excellent! It was great to have DOOH newbies putting forward  some fantastic dynamic digital OOH ideas!

The winning concept for me was Just Eat. It was such a beautifully simple creative story of returning holidaymakers as the target audience. Combining it with that moment at the airport, at the baggage carousel and facing returning home to an empty fridge with a Just Eat message. It felt fresh and really demonstrated that they had been able to fully articulate the Audience + Moment = Message for a prospective Just Eat customer.”

Want us to run a brainstorm session with you? Get in Touch

Missing People Digital OOH. Missing Man Tim Beardsley.
The out-of-home campaign for charity Missing People is returning to cities across the UK from today (Monday), with a series of regionally targeted weekly appeals.

This first appeared in Campaign UK on 16th September 2019.

Missing People Digital OOH

The executions, which will run across transit, city centre and roadside locations, feature the name, age and photo of a missing person, along with the date and location they went missing, plus the free number to call or text for sightings – 116 000.

Missing People DIgital OOH

The push is organised by adtech group QDOT and supported by media owners including JCDecaux, Maxx Media, Limited Space and Perfect Fit Media. It makes use of OpenLoop, QDOT’s dynamic creative optimisation ad server, and its measurement platform PlayTrack, which will provide independent third-party verification for the campaign.

Ross Miller, director of fundraising and communications at Missing People, said: “OOH visibility is so important in our search to find useful information that helps families reconnect with loved ones. OpenLoop allows us to run regionally targeted searches that we can update in a moment and PlayTrack provides full feedback, so we can understand exactly what presence we had across all inventory.

“Digital billboards have proven to be an immensely powerful tool in the search for missing people and we are enormously grateful to the outdoor media owners involved for their incredible support.”

The campaign first launched in 2012 and was conceived by the Outdoor Media Centre (now Outsmart). It last ran about 18 months ago.

Escape the cape roadside DOOH News
Welcome back to our DOOH News for September 2019. This month we’ve been exploring Gen Z’s feelings on OOH, we produced a fantastic dynamic campaign for jetBlue and we went behind the scenes of digital OOH production. Enjoy!
This month… we ‘Escaped the Cape’ with jetBlue! ✈️

jetBlue airlines targeted vacationers driving to Cape Cod with this roadside digital OOH campaign. The dynamic campaign encouraged vacationers to explore different vacation destinations with similar travel times.

In other news…

Gen Z Digital OOH Hyundai BTS DOOH News

Grand Visual’s very own Gen Z’er Charlotte, explores the power of Gen Z and digital OOH. 

 

Google Pixel 3 Retail DOOH News

The busiest quarter of the year is just getting started! Here are our top tips on how to prepare your digital OOH for the busiest period in retail.

DOOH News Adam Stephenson Production

Ever wanted to see behind the scenes at Grand Visual? Adam our producer gives us a peek into the life of digital OOH production.

With our latest promo for Google, we highlighted the data triggers used to ‘Make the Most of Summer!’

DOOH news OreoEclipse

For this month’s insights, we discussed how food & beverage brands can connect with consumers through digital OOH.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our DOOH News for September 2019. If you would like to start receiving our monthly DOOH Newsletters in your mailbox, then please sign up here.

This month, the topic is “food, glorious food” and how food and beverage brands can connect with consumers through meaningful digital OOH.

With Pumpkin Spice season officially here, many consumers are already starting to plan for their holiday feasts. According to research from Deloitte, 82% of these consumers’ feasts will be influenced by promotional offers. So in the messy food fight for seasonal sales, how do great brands stay relevant and cut through the noise?

Food and Digital OOH

With consumers on high alert for the best deals, digital OOH has the ability to engage these consumers on-location and at a personal level. Here are some food and beverage brands who used digital OOH to showcase their product in eye-catching and engaging ways.

Oreo

Oreo leveraged the biggest solar eclipse in over a decade with this incredibly clever linear, digital OOH campaign.

McDonald’s

McDonald’s celebrated its iconic Big Mac with this innovative, interactive digital OOH stunt.

Walker’s

Here’s an interactive campaign we produced for the famous chip brand to entertain shoppers and give them the chance to win a vacation!

Volvic

Volvic launched this campaign in a busy mall, encouraging shoppers to “get juiced” for the chance to win refreshing prizes.

Want to discuss your upcoming digital OOH plans? Get in touch!

As Grand Visual’s resident Gen Z’er, Digital Marketing Apprentice, Charlotte Jones explores the power of Gen Z and digital OOH.

You wouldn’t be wrong to think that Gen Z came into the world with an iPhone in one hand and a MacBook in the other. We basically did. Born between 1995 and 2015, we’ve seen mobile phones go from this funny old Nokia to this technicolour dream…

Basically, a lot can change in 20 years.

As a generation obsessed with technology (not our fault btw), it surprised me to discover that 55% of Gen Z’ers favour OOH advertising because “it’s relaxing.” Theoretically, wouldn’t it make more sense to prefer online ads, given we’re life-long internet junkies?

According to another study, around 82% of Gen Z’ers are actually skipping online ads – and to be honest I’m not really that shocked, given how annoying they can be… So as a generation who regularly skip ads, why do we prefer OOH – a medium that we can’t skip?

I think Gen Z are drawn to billboards because digital OOH isn’t intrusive. It doesn’t pop up every time we watch a YouTube video or use the internet. We can choose to look at it or choose to ignore it. Plus it doesn’t know everything about us. It may be able to direct us to the nearest shop or inform us about the local weather, but it doesn’t know personal details like where we live or our online search history.

Digital OOH also makes for great social content. Seeing your favourite celebrity, on an enormous screen in a location as iconic as Times Square definitely calls for a picture or social post, doesn’t it? Also, have you ever seen somebody post a picture in front of an internet ad? No, that would be totally uncool.

Here are a few of my favourite examples of digital OOH campaigns which have gained massive Gen Z traction.

Netflix: Stranger Things 3

For one of Gen Z’s favourite, “bingeable” TV shows, Netflix decided to choose digital OOH to target the ad-blocking generation. With huge billboards in iconic locations such as Times Square, the campaign earned huge traction across social media; with fans snapping selfies and one fan even tweeting how “big” the show must be because of its Times Square billboards.

Little Mix

With over 30 million followers on their combined social media accounts, you could say that the British girl band Little Mix are popular! In fact, they’re so popular that over the Summer their US fans bought them a billboard in Times Square to promote their latest single. They used the ad to catch the girls’ attention online… which they did!

Hyundai X BTS

Personally, I’m not too keen on BTS but I cannot deny that their influence on Gen Z is anything short of phenomenal! In May 2019, the latest Hyundai X BTS advert premiered on the iconic digital OOH site, Piccadilly Lights. 

Hundreds of fans gathered around the famous London landmark to get a glimpse of the campaign. Photos and videos from the reveal were posted to social media, accumulating thousands of interactions from fans worldwide.

If you compare the BTS premiere to the Lights’ first-ever live stream from Victoria Beckham last year, the results are clearly visible. 

BTS:

Victoria Beckham:

Whenever Gen Z is involved, a brand has a bigger influence on digital OOH than ever before!

Adam Stephenson. Grand Visual Digital OOH Producer.
Ever wanted to see behind the scenes at Grand Visual? Producer, Adam Stephenson gives us a rare peek into the life of digital OOH production.

I think it takes a certain type of person to be a producer in digital OOH. Much like a good coffee, you have to be a subtle blend of calm, collected, smart and completely insane all at the same time. My past year working at Grand Visual has been all of these things, and damn it’s a good coffee.

There is no real ‘typical day’ in the GV office. Sure, there are daily tasks and structures in place, but the journey from initial conception through to when a project goes live is unique to each producer, and each campaign. 

During my time at GV, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on a plethora of campaigns, each with their own idiosyncrasies, and I may have even given each their own celebration dance once everything is live. Whilst no project is the same, like Liam Neeson in Taken, as producers we’ve managed to acquire a specific set of skills to help us deliver any type of DOOH campaign. In my time I have helped shape the messages of various campaigns, such as the screens of Heathrow Terminals, and created a completely unique AR experience in Times Square – it’s been a wild ride pushing great work out into the world.

Into The Spider-Verse: Combined a technically complex and visually engaging campaign with actual user engagement from the streets of Times Square, a personal favourite of mine.

Unlike Liam Neeson, as producers, we can’t tackle the whole campaign single-handedly. We need a carefully crafted team of intelligent, experienced, intuitive and often maniacal people to carry a campaign from concept to delivery. My role as producer, means I manage the assigning of tasks, client expectations, status calls, quality control, delivery documents, timeline reviews, internal stakeholder catch-ups and stand-ups (…to name a few). I told you that I had to be somewhat insane for this. 

At GV I have the privilege of working with really great people who are very good at what they do, and in turn, this only makes me better at what I do. Everyone is keen to push boundaries, make better systems, win awards and exceed expectations every time. The energy is infectious and really helps when new tasks are added to the list as quickly as I’m ticking them off. Within a week, I can see a project evolve from a simple idea to an award-winning campaign.

Pepsi Max: A super cool campaign which really shows just how far we can push DOOH, on both a technical and social scale. Interesting, creative, impactful.

When we have some downtime, you’ll often find us around the pool table or chatting on the breakout bench. There’s a really nice family vibe to GV, generating enough content to give Modern Family a run for its money. It’s great for the rare times a project isn’t going smoothly, we can always take a breather and get a game of pool in.

Overall, the life of a producer at GV is intense yet rewarding. I’ve found myself placed in scenarios I had never even thought of, working on campaigns that continually amaze me, and growing faster than I would at most other agencies. So I’m going to go ahead and drink the perfectly blended coffee, I might just need it.

You may be reading this whilst relaxing on your Summer holidays, but for consumers, the busiest quarter of the year is just getting started! 

With 28% of shoppers completing their Halloween shopping in September¹…

And research from eBay showing that shoppers made two searches for “Christmas” every second on its site in August last year ²… it’s never too early for brands to start thinking about their outdoor campaigns for Q4.

Digital OOH Retail Insights

Consumers are constantly on the lookout for the best deals, and digital OOH has the ability to engage shoppers on-location, showcasing products and displaying offers in real-time.

Let us show you a few examples…

eBay Fill Your Cart With Colour

eBay brought shopping inspiration to the streets of the UK, with this colourful, weather-activated digital OOH campaign.

Estée Lauder Clinique Chubby Plump & Shine

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

Here’s an engaging Augmented Reality experience we created for Clinique to promote the launch of its latest product.

Topshop Autumn/Winter 2015

Here’s a linear digital OOH campaign we produced for Topshop to promote their highly anticipated Autumn/Winter collection.

Marmite Love It or Hate It

Controversial condiment brand, Marmite, enabled shoppers to join in with its interactive Christmas digital OOH campaign.

Want to discuss your upcoming digital OOH plans? Get in touch!

Google Multi App Old Street digital OOH
Welcome to our DOOH News for August 2019. This month, we’ve been busy working hard on a brand new campaign for Google, exploring new technology for augmented & mixed reality and much more. Enjoy!
This month… Google owned British Summertime!

Google Multi App EC1

Google extended its “Make the Most of Summer” campaign with a responsive, data-driven digital OOH push, demonstrating how Google is there to help you enjoy the Summer.

In other news…

Want to find out how some of the world’s biggest entertainment brands are using digital OOH to bring their shows to life?

Entertainment Digital OOH

Our Creative Technologist shares a behind-the-scenes look at Mo-Sy’s StarTracker technology for Augmented & Mixed Reality.

Technology for Augmented and Mixed Reality

Here’s our latest showreel, showcasing the creative possibilities of dynamic for digital OOH. Enjoy!

Want to know what campaigns made our Top 5 Dynamic Digital OOH Campaigns?

Google Outside Dynamic DIgital OOH

It was amazing to see our key digital OOH moments highlighted in this piece from Campaign Mag.

Pepsi MAX Augmented Reality digital OOH

Our CCO Dan Dawson gave us a backstage view of Outdoor Cannes Lions 2019, plus a look at Digital’s progress within the category.

cannes outdoor lions

Here’s our tips for successfully rolling out global digital OOH campaigns.

Dufry Global DOOH

We hope you’ve enjoyed our DOOH News for August 2019. If you would like to start receiving our monthly DOOH Newsletters in your mailbox, then please sign up here.

Google Outside Dynamic Digital OOH
Welcome back to another Top 5 countdown! Today we’ve narrowed down our favourite dynamic campaigns to just five (plus some honourable mentions). 

If you missed the last countdown, where we picked our favourite augmented reality campaigns, you should definitely check that out.

So drum roll please… in no particular order, here are our top 5 dynamic digital OOH campaigns. 

1. Spotify: 2018 Wrapped

To celebrate the end of another great year, Spotify revamped its popular campaign “Wrapped” with a dynamic, digital OOH twist! Spotify’s premium users were encouraged to sign up for a breakdown of their year in music – for the chance to appear on iconic billboards including Times Square and Piccadilly Lights. The campaign gave over 7000 ordinary people the chance to see their name in the famous lights. What an awesome way to wrap up a year!

2. Google: Introducing Explore

To encourage New Yorkers to explore their exciting city, Google launched this contextual, digital OOH campaign. Based on Google Maps’ latest features, the campaign made the public aware of new places and even reminded residents to check out places that they haven’t visited in a while! We love this campaign as it’s messaging continuously evolved based on what was going on at the time. Live in the Summer of 2018, “Introducing Explore” went on to win a silver OBIE!

3. Hiscox: Cyber Live

In a digital OOH first, cybercriminals were unknowingly behind this unique campaign for Hiscox Cyber Live. To drive awareness of cybercrime to small businesses, the campaign creative was responsive to real-life cyber attacks. As each attack took place, a spot on the poster would flash and pulse. A dynamic campaign that was truly unique, Cyber Live went on to win numerous awards including “Campaign of the Year” at the Campaign Media Awards 2019.

4. McDonald’s: The Iconic Weather Forecast

McDonald's McWeather Dynamic Digital OOH

We’ve seen a few dynamic weather campaigns over the years, but none as innovative as the Iconic Weather Forecast. Taking advantage of the ever-changing UK weather, McDonald’s decided to forecast the weather with a savoury twist. Overturned fries became rain, cheese-burgers became sunshine and chicken nuggets became snow… A chip dipped in sauce became the nation’s thermometer! The dynamic campaign was so popular in fact, that it ran for a second year in 2019.

5. Benadryl: Pollen Counts

Benadryl came to the rescue for hay fever sufferers with this clever, dynamic campaign. When pollen counts across the UK were irritatingly high, the reactive-creative alerted sufferers, prompting them to take action with Benadryl. Winning multiple awards, including a COOH award, the successful campaign was re-booked every summer for three years.

Honourable Mentions

It was so hard to pick just 5 dynamic campaigns, that we had to add these honourable mentions as well… Enjoy!

Top Dynamic Digital OOH Campaigns

Specsavers owned trending news and gossip with this hilarious campaign; prompting consumers to ask themselves if a leaking phone was more important than regular eye tests…

Exploring London was made easier than ever with this data-rich campaign for Google Outside. The digital OOH campaign went on to win two Cannes Lions later that year.

The out-of-home industry’s leaders encouraged other industries to “Get Out of Home,” with this tactical campaign.

Who would have ever thought that a camera-wearing cow would make for pure digital OOH gold…

We hope that you’ve enjoyed these campaigns as much as we do; stay tuned for our next countdown!