Entertainment insights for Digital OOH. Spider Verse Times Square campaign
Charlotte Jones, Marketing Apprentice, shares how the biggest entertainment brands are using digital OOH to bring characters and storylines to life.

Did you know that US consumers spend almost as much time watching videos as they do working?¹  Or that over 60% of Millennials and Gen Z consumers stream videos daily?²  Whether you’re a film buff or a series binge-watcher, or maybe you got an account simply to see what all the fuss about Stranger Things is, streaming is a part of our everyday lives.

So it should come as no surprise that the world’s biggest entertainment clients are revelling in it – with epic digital OOH campaigns. We’ve worked closely with brands such as Amazon, Spotify, Disney and Netflix to craft memorable digital OOH experiences that bring characters and storylines from popular shows to life.

Let us show you a few examples…

Amazon Prime Good Omens

Amazon Prime brought Armageddon to Times Square with this awesome Augmented Reality experience for Good Omens.

Netflix The Haunting of Hill House

Netflix scared fans with this horrifying, Augmented Reality experience for the Haunting of Hill House at Comic-Con NY 2019.

Disney My Disney Side

Disney shared the magic at this unsuspecting mall, with an immersive Augmented Reality experience!

With the dawn of digital, it should come as no surprise that 46% of internet users say that they prefer to access music through online services than buy it offline.³  Considering there are over 7 billion internet users in the world… that is a lot of people!⁴

As well as “video on demand” brands, we have also worked closely with some of the biggest music entertainment brands, including Spotify and Google, to create awesome dynamic digital OOH campaigns. Both of these examples played important roles within the brand’s broader campaign strategy.

Spotify 2018 Wrapped


Spotify gave their premium users the chance to see their ‘wrapped’ playlist appear on iconic billboards in New York, London, Berlin & Melbourne.

Google Play Music

Google Play Music showcased the app’s ability to suggest the perfect soundtrack for the consumer’s mindset at that moment.

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

Sky Q Summons Augmented Reality digital OOH
Sun, Sea & Digital OOH!

With Summer on the horizon, we are sharing our top considerations for digital OOH this warm season. It’s a great time of year to use digital OOH to reach your target audience, as nearly half of the population become more active as the weather gets warmer! So why not consider planning your next digital OOH campaign just as you would plan a vacation?

Audience

Who’s your ideal travel companion? Family, friends or a solo adventure? Just as you consider who you travel with, it’s just as important to consider who is the ideal audience for your campaign.

Here’s an augmented reality experience we created for Sky Q, designed to target commuters with fun and games during the school holidays.

Moment

What’s your perfect Summer vacation? A relaxing seaside break or adrenalin filled adventure? Considering the moment you want to create with your digital OOH is key. What do you want your campaign to make consumers feel, think or do?

For the cinematic release for Inside Out, we created a user-generated experience in Times Square. As the movie was centred around emotions, the campaign was designed to capture a participant’s emotions before sharing them to the digital screen.

Lasting Impression

What’s your most memorable vacation? With digital OOH campaigns, it’s just as important to consider the lasting impression you want to leave. Focus on creating a moment for your audience that will truly leave a lasting impression.

Here’s an augmented reality experience we created for Disney. The social video has been viewed over 300 million times and shared over 5.9 million times around the world. It also earned the title of the 2nd most shared ad of 2015.

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

Grand Visual Team

our team

Gwen

How long have you been at GV for and what’s your role?
I’ve been at GV for five years now and I am Head of People.

What’s your favourite GV campaign?
That’s an easy one! My favourite GV campaign is the Let The Memories Begin campaign that we did for Disney.

If you weren’t in the Operations, would you rather be in the Finance Team or the Tech Team?
If I wasn’t in Operations, I would rather be in the Tech Team as they are always building cool stuff for our campaigns.

Would you rather live in a place that is always cold or always hot?
I would rather live in a place that is always hot than cold.

Would you rather be able to breathe underwater or fly through the air?
I would prefer to breathe underwater than fly through the air.

 

our team

Ric

How long have you been at GV for and what’s your role?
I’ve been at GV for 6 years and I’m the Creative Director.

What’s your favourite GV campaign?
Probably the Augmented Reality campaign that we did for Doctor Strange as it had a load of awesome things going on in it.

If you weren’t in the Creative Team, would you rather be in Client Services or the Production Team?
That’s a difficult question. I think I’d rather be in Production rather than Client Services as I don’t think I’d enjoy communicating with clients on that side of things!

Would you rather be the first person to explore a planet or be the inventor of a drug that cures a deadly disease?
I have no interest in trying to discover new planets so I guess it would be curing a disease.

Would you rather be completely invisible for a day or be able to fly?
I think I would get up to terrible things if I was completely invisible for a day so I’d stick with flying for a day!

Grand Visual Team

Our Team

JJ

How long have you been at GV for and what’s your role?
I’ve been at Grand Visual for seven years now, and I’m a Creative Technologist which means that I bridge together the Creative and Technical departments.

What’s your favourite GV campaign?
I’d say it would be Disney Shadows, which was quite a fun project to work on. It was very different to what we usually do… and it got a great reception online!

If you weren’t in Tech would you rather be in Production or Creative?
I think I’d definitely rather be in Creative… it’s already part of a role that I work at the moment so I think that would come most natural to me.

Would you rather travel a hundred years into the future or a hundred years into the past?
I think into the future… it would just be fun to see how far everything has come and whether we’ve actually managed to crack the hologram from Back To The Future.

Would you rather it be hot all of the time or cold all of the time?
I think cold all of the time because it’s easier to warm up than cool down.

 

our team

Collins

How long have you been at GV for and what’s your role?
I’ve been at GV for four and a half years and I’m a technician.

What’s your favourite GV campaign?
I’d have to say… Doctor Strange!

If you weren’t in Tech would you rather be in client services or marketing?
Oh, marketing… definitely!

Would you rather be completely invisible for one day or be able to fly?
Fly… obviously!

Would you rather give up bathing for a month or give up the internet for a month?
Internet!

Disney Junior Magic Moments

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.”

Grand Visual has produced a large linear DOOH campaign supporting the launch of Disney Life, a subscription based video streaming service in the UK. With a Disney Life membership the whole family can enjoy hundreds of movies, TV shows, books and more from Disney’s unrivalled entertainment portfolio.

Working with Disney, we created master animations and multiple reversions per creative for ad formats in Retail, Roadside, City Centre & Rail environments over the campaign’s 4 week duration. The release of each new campaign creative is scheduled to coincide with the release date of particular content becoming available on the Disney Life app.

The campaign started 19th March and will run until the 20th April across Canary Wharf Media, Clear Channel, Exterion, Forrest, JCDecaux, Maxx Media, Ocean, Outdoor Plus, Primesight, Signature and Storm.

A photo of crowds enjoying the Times Square Disney Inside Out interactive activation

Have you ever wanted your face up in the lights of Times Square? Ahead of the launch of Disney•Pixar’s original new movie “Inside Out” on June 19, lucky passers-by will be given this opportunity.

This month at the Disney Store in Times Square you are able to have your selfie appear on the Disney Store’s digital billboard, along with the colourful characters from “Inside Out.” During the promotion, an events team on the ground will invite passers-by to “Meet the Voices Inside Their Heads,” using the hashtag #InsideOutSelfiesNYC.

Images submitted will then be analysed and assigned their very own Emotion from “Inside Out,” based on the facial expression in their selfie.

The digital billboard above the Disney Store will be broadcasting #InsideOutSelfiesNYC the weekend of June 13-14, and on the film’s release date, June 19.

Not able to make it Times Square? You can still enjoy the fun by visiting www.insideouthq.com and taking your selfie there, which can then be shared across social media.

Creative Technology Director at Grand Visual Dan Dawson, said:

“This execution is a fun way for people to interact with the characters in ‘Inside Out,’ and getting your face up in the lights of Times Square—well who wouldn’t want to do that?”

We attended lots of great sessions on day 3 of Advertising Week Europe, from the IPA session on Big Tech vs Big Ideas to MEC’s session on Creativity and Collaboration. Instead of summarising our take outs from every event we attended, we have decided to share our two highlights from the day.

Clear Channel’s We Love Outdoor session was one of the highlights from today. After two days full of people throwing around well-intentioned buzz-words such as ‘collaboration’ and ‘innovation’ it was a refreshing change to step into a room and hear something a little different. In this session we heard directly from clients on how OOH is helping them achieve their business goals and change peoples lives for the better.

It was particularly lovely to hear from Jo Youle, CEO of Missing People talk about how DOOH has helped grow awareness of the charity from 13% in 2007 to currently over 20% in London. Most importantly it was rewarding to hear how the partnership between ourselves, Clear Channel & the Outdoor Media Centre has helped reunite missing people with their loved ones. Since the campaign began in 2012, we have delivered over 500 regionalised campaigns, and over 50% of the people featured in these campaigns are now reunited with their loved ones.

Also speaking about some great OOH campaigns they have run in conjunction with Clear Channel was Glen Wilson from Posterscope. He spoke about the delightful Art Everywhere project which delivered on its promise to make England a little more attractive – a concept which is now being taken on around the world.

The Princes Trust gave a powerful testimony as to how, through OOH, they are now not only able to reach young people who are in need of their services, but also to reach those crucial donors through great creative and the extensive reach that OOH offers.

A real heartwarming presentation. #WeLoveOutdoor.

Another great session of the day, was from Andrew Millstein, President of Disney Animations who revealed a few secrets about the art of storytelling with Disney. Talking about the so-called ‘dark days’ of Disney from the mid-nineties to early 2000’s, Millstein discussed how, after the Pixar acquisition, they weaved together two distinct strands of success in order to build the Disney we have today.

It was inspirational to hear how they have maintained that creative spark after 93 years, and how they keep pushing themselves to create the stories which inevitably become part of the tapestries of our lives.

Collaboration has certainly been one of the keys to Disney’s success. They maintain this is by instilling ownership of each project within all teams working on Disney films, a process which brings out in everybody a real passion and desire to find the best solution. This process takes time but ultimately it is one of the key elements leading to Disney getting the story right time and time again, and it’s something we can certainly attest to after working on many projects with them.

It’s been such a full on week so far, one more day to go.

A Disney shadows augmented reality digital out of home campaign.
Mickey Mouse & Pals share a little Disney magic with unsuspecting shoppers.

In January 2015, Mickey Mouse and his pals visited Westfield Shopping Mall in Massapequa, New York to share a little Disney magic with unsuspecting shoppers.

Using a uniquely adapted storefront, and a touch of pixie dust, Disney Parks transformed shoppers’ shadows into Disney Characters’ shadows as they passed by. Their ‘shadows’ even interacted with shoppers who stopped to engage with them, leading up to a magical surprise.

 

The visit from Disney Parks Characters was an effort to remind us that we all have a Disney Side. It’s the side of us that refuses to grow up and comes out to play the moment we step through the gates of a Disney theme park.

A social film of the visit, released on 17th February, has been viewed over 80 million times on Facebook. The video has also been posted to the Disney Parks YouTube channel.

Dan Dawson, Creative Technology Director at Grand Visual said:

“This was a truly magical undertaking for Grand Visual, from concept to social film delivery. From the initial concept, sketches, content development to the creative technology, event and filmed and edited output from the event, this project is testament to the amazing team involved and our mutual respect and love for all things magic and magical… something synonymous with the Disney Parks brand.”

You can see how the action unfolded here:

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.