Well, that was 2017. What has been a tumultuous year in the real world, has been one of relative growth, prosperity, opportunity and creative development in Out of Home media, the world over.

Scalable Stories

At Grand Visual we continued to expand and break creative milestones. Our mission this year was to advocate scalable use of the medium and to help clients craft smarter stories. Campaigns that span the diverse and rich OOH media landscape, making the most of its ubiquity. Our focus paid off and we delivered campaigns to over 48 countries this year.

Our work for a larger entertainment client saw us craft creative for a host of new markets and unique formats from Indonesia to El Salvador. We also produced “Smart Linear” campaigns for the likes of Google, Suzuki, Sainsbury’s and Bheard all of which embraced tactical storytelling at scale, pushing the breadth of previous projects and reaching new OOH audiences, some picking up creative effectiveness awards along the way.

Our Digital Director, Ric Albert, said:

This year, we’ve delivered projects to more countries and more screen formats than ever before. From international rugby matches to press junkets, the largest outdoor screen in Europe (Kazan Stadium), to a building projection in Puerto Rico, our scalable stories have filled digital canvasses across the world.

Tactical Messaging

2017 was a record year for tactical, dynamically delivered digital OOH campaigns at Grand Visual. It’s encouraging to see the accelerated adoption and more varied application of data by leading brands in the OOH arena. Forward-thinking brands continue to increase their digital investment and embrace the opportunity to be smarter with their digital OOH communication.

Highlights this year include McDonald’s tactical messaging, to remind consumers ‘how long until breakfast finishes’ in the mornings and ‘where they can pick up the latest limited edition sandwich’ at midday.

Keira Kane, our technical director, adds:

“This year we integrated a wider variety of data feeds into our Digital OOH campaigns to deliver striking, contextually relevant messages for consumers. Brand campaigns that are useful, relevant and aligned with the consumer mindset can deliver a compelling call to action that boosts the performance and effectiveness of brand messaging dramatically.”

Engaging Creative

Our interactive work this year took us around the world with projects for Disney, amongst others. For too long, interactive DOOH projects have been viewed as special, one-off, premium activations. But now, digital OOH can deliver memorable, personal, and interactive experiences across multiple markets. A modular, tiered approach to interactive projects allows territories to push the technology envelope as far as their local limits allow. This is exactly what we did to help an entertainment client promote an upcoming release. We produced an interactive Augmented Reality execution which was deployed across Spain, Mexico & Brazil. A social video of the Madrid execution received over 100,000 natural views in just two days on Facebook.

Dan Dawson, our Chief Creative Technology Officer said:

Engaging campaigns serve multiple purposes. It’s often our most shared and awarded work, so it’s great to see the appetite for this extending into new territories and markets. Indeed we spotted this trend a few years ago, and clients and agencies are exploiting our ability to serve multiple levels of interaction to multiple territories from concept to execution. This can help shift engagement levels from hundreds of thousands to millions, at a small incremental cost, and is a testament to our hard-working and knowledgeable team.

The Future

2017 has been an exciting year in digital OOH. The market has moved on. From single location stunts and fixed brand messages, to tactical, plugged-in, interactive and always on campaigns that span multiple formats and territories.

As digital reaches the tipping point, set to smash 50% of UK OOH spend next year, with other key markets to follow, 2018 looks set to be our most exciting year yet. It is all to play for. Simple, scalable, tactical and engaging stories is where it’s at and we can’t wait to see where digital OOH takes us in 2018.

This piece was first published by The Huffington Post on 05/01/2017. 

The once humble billboard, now a connected powerhouse, looks set to play a key role in the future of smart city infrastructure. The digitisation of the Out of Home media landscape continues apace and provides an important entry point for reaching hyper-connected urban audiences with real-time news and information, alongside smart, contextual, data-driven advertising.

For advertisers, never before has there been so much opportunity to target on-the-go audiences. The ubiquity of full-motion Digital Out of Home (DOOH) screens in cities around the world, combined with rocketing smartphone penetration, wifi provision, and a growing tech-savvy OOH audience, all provide a huge amount of data to inform outdoor creative. Advertisers should be looking at OOH through a new strategic lens.

In fact, we can harness a vast range of data to contextualise OOH copy. There’s location data, and 3rd party data such as weather, social, transit, and news, plus brand owned data including pricing, stock levels, and retail stores. Through these layers of data, we can exploit the ‘Context Effect’ – providing dynamic, data-driven and locally relevant information throughout the customer journey – powerful.

This year there has been some promising signs that the creative mode is moving in the right direction. The datasets have expanded beyond the pure daypart and weather activations that informed DOOH creative in 2015. Campaigns utilising sports data or social media triggers (trends, polls, competitions, direct interaction) have been particularly prevalent, but there has also been cinema listings, traffic reports, pollution levels, travel times, BARB data, and car recognition technology used to inform DOOH creative.

Notable examples from this year include the NSW Cancer Institute using real-time UV levels to deliver sun-safe messages in Australia, Amazon’s people-powered DOOH activity for Catastrophe in the US, which used live twitter polls to trigger themed trailers based on audience preference.

In the UK, the charity Missing People used live registration statistics from its Child Rescue Alert campaign, alongside location and travel data, to deliver real-time, geo-targeted messages. Google’s long-term holding at Old Street roundabout continues to deliver real-time locally relevant information about traffic conditions, weather, nearest cafes, as well as being a living, breathing noticeboard for the East London community.

However, the reality is, we might all be talking about it, but when it comes to harnessing the power of data in the DOOH environment, good examples are still relatively light on the ground. Most campaigns remain one-dimensional, few have leveraged brand owned data or used different datasets to target different touch points during the customer journey. There is definite room for growth here. DOOH could be doing so much more.

The DOOH platform can automate delivery, prioritising advertising which matches pre-set conditions such as time, weather and consumer mindset. For a soft drinks portfolio – this could mean pushing hydrating iced tea on a hot summer’s day, fresh juice and caffeinated drinks during the morning commute, isotonic drinks on gym screens, and details of mixers and cocktails for those heading home after a long day in the office.

Targeting efficiency should also be brought into brand messages as well as media placements, whether that’s tapping into major events, sports tournaments, or topics trending on Twitter. Creative can also target audience segments and mindsets – targeting mums with coffee brands and local cafes during the morning, lunch deals targeting office workers based on the weather, such as soup for cold days, followed by drinks deals available at club nights in the evenings.

Given the serious amount of data available to contextualise copy, it seems strange that DOOH is still lagging behind online in its use of data. The main components of delivering a successful data-informed campaign include; shared ambition, clean, accessible, real-time data, and ad-tech systems to process and deliver copy based on conditions.

The ambition to be more tactical, more relevant and more effective is a given for any brand. Plus, the impressive ROI studies that are starting to amass for data-driven, contextual OOH campaigns makes it a no-brainer. The systems to analyse, manage and deliver real-time data-driven campaigns are already in place with ad-tech platforms such as OpenLoop.

So, that leaves data, and one of the key challenges for 2017 will be finding clean data sources that are accessible in real-time. Data moves extremely fast and a lot of cities are now looking at all the data that gets produced by various systems and how the data is captured. This goes for brands too, as they look to be more strategic in their customer engagement and targeting ability, data streams will become more and more important going forward.

DOOH advertising is in rude health. It cannot be muted, blocked or skipped and provides important touchpoints during the customer journey right up to the point of purchase. The proliferation of devices and data means that advertising messages can now be targeted, tactical and relevant throughout the day. This year has shown some promising signs that the sector is waking up to the opportunity, and we are excited to see where data leads us creatively in 2017.

Grand Visual, in partnership with Talon, RGA and OMD UK, took home the Grand Prize at the Clear Channel Outdoor Planning awards last night for Google Outside 2.0.

Now entering its ninth year, the awards celebrate the very best in outdoor planning from the last 12 months.

It was an exciting night as we were up for three awards, with MyMonopoly taking home Highly Commended for Best use of Digital in Outdoor, in partnership with Talon, OMD UK, Ambient and Bite PR. Google Outside 2.0 (along with Talon, OMD UK, R/GA) ended up taking the win in this category. Also up for an award, was the Pepsi Unbelievable Bus Shelter, which was shortlisted for Best use of Innovation in Outdoor, the award was won by “ESPN FC” by TPF-London.

With our recent award wins including a British Arrow Award for Pepsi Unbelievable Bus Shelter, an Opal Award for MyMonopoly, along with multiple wins at the Creative Circle awards it’s been a bumper start for the 2015 awards season.

Google has launched a DOOH campaign promoting its Android brand, and the Androidify app.

The app, available either online or via download to a mobile device, allows users to customise an Android avatar to look like them, their friend, or anyone else they choose. The user is then encouraged to share the customised avatar on social media.

The campaign, created by Adam & Eve DDB, uses linear and dynamic DOOH to showcase the huge range of customised characters available under the tagline “be together. not the same”. Creative features a cast of customised avatars in environments tailored to screen locations. For example, activity running on London Underground DEPs shows a multitude of personalised avatars travelling on an escalator.

The campaign is running throughout November at locations in London and Manchester, including Underground, rail stations, shopping malls, roadside, and bus shelters. Dynamic content, powered by Grand Visual’s OpenLoop campaign management dashboard, will be displayed on JCDecaux’s new Old Street EC1 screens.

Digital production is by Adam & Eve DDB and Grand Visual, with animation by Passion Pictures. Media was planned and booked by Talon. Media owners are JCDecaux, Exterion, Clear Channel, and Ocean Outdoor.

Earlier this year, YouTube launched a US ad campaign promoting some of it’s highest subscribed American “YouTubers” (such as Michelle Phan and Bethany Mota). In October attention turned to the UK talent that is setting the world of YouTube alight in a campaign that encompassed TV, print, online and outdoor.

With the goal of promoting the best of YouTube content, and encouraging people to become content creators themselves, the YouTube Beacons campaign featured the channels of UK YouTubers Vice News (1M subscribers), Zoella (6.5M subscribers), and The Slow Mo Guys (4.6M subscribers).

Digital out of home creative featuring the YouTube stars appeared at roadside, rail, London Underground, bus shelter, and mall locations including key sites such as the Digital Motion screens at Euston, Liverpool Street and Waterloo, Four Dials and Centre Spectacular screens at Westfield, and Holland Park Roundabout.

The DOOH element of the campaign also marked the launch of new digital screens at Old Street roundabout, London. The new JCDecaux owned Old Street EC1 site features four state-of-the-art screens positioned above the roundabout overlooking one of the city’s most creative and lively areas.

Google’s Media Manager, Rob Maddison, commented, “The launch of Old Street EC1 really suits our campaign perfectly as it allows YouTube to become part of the fabric of this highly desirable and exciting part of London, around Tech City.”

The campaign was conceived by Google, planned and booked by OMD & Talon, and produced by Grand Visual. Media was provided by JCDecaux, Clear Channel, Ocean Outdoor, and Exterion Media.

In July, Grand Visual opened its doors in New York City. It’s been an eventful and satisfying few months as we set about integrating OpenLoop, our dynamic campaign management tool, into the US networks, and building on the creative production work we had already been doing for American clients.

Given that we’re the new kids on the block in NYC, you can imagine how pleasantly surprised we were to receive a bunch of Mediapost Digital Out of Home Award nominations. Our surprise turned to joy on the night when last Tuesday night we walked off with six awards, including Best in Show!

The awards won were: Best in Show for “Google Front Row”, Platform (Augmented Reality) for “Pepsi Max Unbelievable Bus Shelter”, Best Venue/Location Based Execution for “Google Front Row”, Best Park/Sports Arena/Stadium Concert Venue for “Google Front Row”, Best Execution Promoting a Brand within Industry Vertical (Beverage) for “Pepsi Max Unbelievable Bus Shelter”, Best Technology/Consumer Electronics for “Google Outside”.

It was a thrill for our work to be recognised to such a degree by the US industry, and a true highpoint to our first year in the Big Apple. We couldn’t have done it without great clients and agency partners. We hope our success at the Mediapost DOOH Awards will be an indicator of great things for the future of Grand Visual New York.

Last November saw Google launch Google Outside, a location based dynamic digital out of home pilot scheme that served up geo-targeted search results to bus shelters and Underground stations in London. For September 2014, the award-winning campaign has been expanded to offer a greater variety of content, and reach more locations.

Devised by Google and R/GA, the campaign is based on the Google Search smartphone app, and in particular highlights the voice-activated aspects of the software. Creative draws on the key functionality and visual elements of the app, with content tailored dynamically to each screen’s location to display information about local restaurants, shops, attractions, and events. Time of day, and weather conditions are also factored in to ensure that screens deliver useful information to viewers at an appropriate time.

Based on eighteen “story” types — local restaurant information, movie information, or directions to a nearby attraction, for example — the creative allows for hundreds of permutations of each story drawn from genuine searches on the Google platform. Search data is supplemented by location information and data from the Google ecosystem, with the real-time feeds and dynamic content delivery managed by OpenLoop. Analytics from the first two weeks of the activity indicates that over 2000 “stories” are being displayed each day.

Jonathan Conway, Strategy Director, Talon said, “Digital OOH is the ideal channel to show Londoners how the Google Search app can make their lives simpler. Each day we’re delivering thousands of unique search stories, continually updated to deliver the right information at the right time to on-the-go audiences. A lot of work goes on behind the scenes, but when you see it working, it feels magical.”

Neil Morris, Founder of Grand Visual added, “This innovative, contextually-dynamic DOOH campaign is pushing the boundaries in terms of sheer data payloads and the hugely ambitious content distribution. Crucially the activity is supported by real-time monitoring of the dynamic feeds and playout.”

The activity will run for four weeks on 1,240 rail, London Underground and bus shelter screens, making it the largest dynamic, location-based DOOH campaign seen in the region. Beyond Central London, locations include Guildford, Gatwick Airport, Epsom, and Watford Junction.

The campaign is created by R/GA, with digital production by Grand Visual, and dynamic campaign management handled by OpenLoop, the dynamic digital out of home dashboard. Media is provided by Exterion Media, JCDecaux, and Clear Channel, and was planned and booked by Talon and OMD UK.