Now in its 6th year, Ocean Outdoor’s Digital Creative Competition results were revealed on Thursday morning at the BFI IMAX in London. Over the years, the competition has become well known for nurturing campaign concepts that go on to win at Cannes Lions and beyond. The annual awards are a testament to the growth and value of Digital Out of Home. Only a handful of campaign concepts were pitched at its inception 6 years ago and now in 2015 submissions numbered nearly 100.

This year Grand Visual took first place in the ‘Creative Techniques’ category. The winning entry was for the Odeon ‘Smarter Cinema’ campaign submitted in partnership with Talon and MG OMD. The proposed campaign would see the cinema chain combine micro level sales data and digital out of home technology to serve hyper-local cinema adverts. The campaign communicates film showings, ticket availability and variable pricing to drive ticket sales on digital screens within the vicinity of an Odeon. The  creative is updated to deliver the most effective information in real time and is supported by geo-targeted mobile ads to amplify the message.

The judges said:

“Brutally normal, but brilliant all the same. It makes a lot of sense, using smart real-time based solutions to resolve a local business problem. The novelty factor is that it hasn’t been done before.”

Watch our competition entry below:

To review all the competition winners you can check them out here.

The Microloan Foundation, a UK charity providing small business loans to women in sub-Saharan Africa, launched an innovative live donation digital billboard campaign at Westfield London, Shepherds Bush this weekend.

The screen showed an incomplete image of a smiling African woman constructed entirely from pennies. Passersby were encouraged to donate via SMS: “Your small change can make a big difference in Africa. See How. Text CHANGE and your NAME to 70777.”

Each time a participant donated a fixed amount by text, a personalised on-screen thank you message would appear followed by a new batch of coins which would fall into place on the poster image until eventually the picture of the smiling woman was complete.

Completed images appeared on penniesforlife.org.uk where donors can look up their contribution and see their coins tagged within the image. Donors can then share their contribution with friends via Twitter, Facebook or email.

Created by DLKW Lowe, the campaign ran from the 25th – 26th February 2012 as a weekend domination on Ocean Outdoor’s Eat Street digital poster site. Grand Visual provided digital production and tech build, with SMS monitoring via OpenLoop. 3D motion graphics were produced by Absolute with website design and build by United Studios.

Last week Colgate-Palmolive kicked off a dynamic digital outdoor campaign to promote their ‘Keep Britain Smiling’ campaign. The campaign integrated UGC content from Colgate’s Facebook page where people were asked to ‘share a smile for charity’ and then the photos featured on large format digital billboards across the UK in support of children’s charity Barnardo’s.

Created by VML London and produced by Grand Visual, the campaign used Grand Visual’s OpenLoop platform to randomly select photos of smiling Facebook users to stream them directly to the digital billboard creative. The campaign aims to collect one million “smiles” this summer, and has pledged to donate £100,000 to children’s charity Barnardo’s when that target has been reached.

On Colgate’s Facebook page every photograph of a smile, wall comment and ‘like’ is worth a number of additional smiles which are registered on Colgate’s smile-o-meter and help Colgate to reach its target to then make the £100,000 donation to Barnardo’s.

This weekend an experiential campaign ran alongside the DOOH activity at London’s Westfield Shopping Centre. Managed by Blazinstar, the experiential activity was staged around Ocean Outdoor’s large format digital billboard on Eat Street, the team handed out free samples and also took pictures of shoppers who wanted to ‘share a smile for charity’ and be featured on the billboard itself. Photos were uploaded via Grand Visual’s Open Loop platform and streamed to the billboard instantly. The opportunity to feature in a large billboard advert proved to be extremely popular amongst shoppers and created a real buzz around the digital site.

The broader digital out of home activity screened across Ocean Outdoor’s large format digital billboards at Westfield London, the Birmingham Bullring and the Liverpool Media Wall, as well as on JCDecaux’s Transvison network and CBS Outdoor’s XTP screens on the London Underground.

Nike launched a regional outdoor campaign to promote the Nike Pro Combat Dri-FIT Competition Base Layer range. The campaign was based around football and rugby fixtures and used out-of-home formats close to match venues to target sports fans with tailored copy for the specific sport and teams.

Working with Wieden + Kennedy, Grand Visual produced the DOOH copy which featured Nike sponsored players smashing through the word BOOM carved out of a block of ice. The creative illustrates the power and performance of the clothing range which combats the cold.

As well as using a variety of DOOH formats along major transport routes and in close proximity to each match venue, the campaign also starred different players to ensure that each execution was locally relevant. For England’s rugby fixtures against New Zealand and Australia, England captain Lewis Moody was featured across XTP, DEP, LCD and Transvision screens at Waterloo underground and rail stations and on static 6 sheets in close proximity to Twickenham Stadium.

Similarly, the Villa vs Blackpool football match at Villa Park showed Agbonlahor smashing through the ice on Birmingham’s 5 Ways screen, Transvision screens, and Super Novae’s brand new Birmingham M5 Lynx screen. This was followed by bursts of activity around Arsenal vs Spurs at Emirates Stadium, Villa vs Arsenal at Villa Park, and Man United vs Arsenal at Old Trafford.

The campaign was booked by Mindshare and runs 5th November to 6th December.

Sky Sports launches a multi network digital outdoor campaign to promote its exclusive live coverage of the Ashes tournament. Supporting the print and static outdoor concept “Stay up or catch up”, the digital activity adds daily match results and tailored commentary based on that day’s game play.

Created by Brothers and Sisters and delivered through Grand Visual’s OpenLoop tactical platform, the multi format digital outdoor campaign targets commuters with tactical day part copy. The morning creative shows a member of Sky’s commentary team greeting commuters with the end of day match scores and reminding fans to “watch the morning catch up” on Sky Player, skysports.com, or Sky Mobile TV.

On the evening execution a commentator appears providing opinion on the previous day’s play and the day to come – prompting viewers to “Stay up or catch up” with Sky.

The campaign is managed through Grand Visual’s OpenLoop platform which enables copy updates to be pushed across multiple outdoor networks almost instantaneously. The timely and responsive communication runs across seven different networks along popular commuter routes including roadside, forecourt, rail and underground.

Media was booked by IPM and runs for the duration of the test match.