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.

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.

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.

As part of its continued international growth, Talon has extended its global independent OOH offering, with the addition of market-leading digital OOH creative services specialist Grand Visual, and its digital OOH Ad tech provider QDOT.

The strategic acquisition enables Talon to further enhance its abilities across the US and to manage the increased demand for dynamic utilization of the digital landscape as the OOH industry evolves. Through this extension of services and abilities, Talon will continue to develop new ways to better serve clients and contribute to making the industry ‘Smarter as Standard’.

Grand Visual and QDOT employ 48 people globally, across London, New York and a development hub in Montevideo, Uruguay. Both companies will continue to run with the existing management structure, led by founder and chief executive Neil Morris, and Grand Visual managing director Dan Dawson and QDOT managing director Ben Putland.

Grand Visual will retain its identity, and continue to work autonomously with agencies, media owners and client brand teams, including Warner Brothers, Amazon Studios, Netflix and Spotify.

The purchase follows Talon’s acquisition of US independent OOH media agency Grandesign earlier this year, along with the launch of international network Plexus, connected traveller offering Latitude and proprietary Ad tech platforms Plato and Ada.

Barry Cupples, Group Chief Executive Officer at Talon commented:

“As we continue to invest in our proposition as a global independent OOH media specialist, we are excited to bring Grand Visual and QDOT into the Talon Group. QDOT’s world leading technology platforms and Grand Visual’s expertise in digital storytelling, means we are in an enviable position to offer true end-to-end service for our clients – as well as providing a tailored solution to those who need to plug specific services into their own OOH ecosystems.

 

As the industry moves towards a more evidence-based economy, we feel confident that the breadth of our experience, services and capabilities will help to elevate client services further enhancing our smarter as standard approach.”

Neil Morris, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Grand Visual and QDOT said:

“I am proud of the entrepreneurial teams we have in place and the global, future-facing services we have developed. Digital OOH offers an incredible canvas that is crying out for intelligent, interoperable solutions to help brands drive meaningful results. Joining the Talon Group will enable Grand Visual and QDOT to integrate with complementary services, such as Plato and Ada to facilitate scale at an even faster pace.”

This first appeared in MarTech Series on 21st February 2019.

Our Chief Creative Technology Officer, Daniel Dawson discusses technological advancements in the Out-of-Home (OOH) industry in 2018 and his predictions for AdTech with MarTech Series.

Tell us about your role at Grand Visual and the team/technology you handle.

I head up all creative technology projects at Grand Visual and I am lucky to have a diverse team with a broad spectrum of creative, technical and coding backgrounds to work with.

Besides working on our own AdTech platforms and systems, we also explore, implement, and hone a whole range of innovative engagement techniques such as Augmented Reality, Touch & Gesture, Face Tracking, Video, and Mobile to drive interactions. Engaging stories allow consumers to change or personalize experiences in various ways, creating greater brand recall and changing consumer behaviours. 

What were the most significant technological advancements in the Out-of-Home industry in 2018?

There have been some high-profile advancements in the testing of programmatic platforms for automated media trading. A significant and necessary step forward for the industry, in terms of connecting real programmatic media to programmatic creative — the holy grail.

What are your predictions on the state of AdTech in 2019?

AdTech systems are already changing the way brands plan, book and use the Out-of-Home medium. OOH specialists have begun to buy a sustained presence across the year for heavy OOH users such as McDonald’s, Coca Cola and Google, with these brand’s implementing a longer-term intelligent planning approach across their brand and product portfolios. In 2019, these backend AdTech systems will make huge steps in terms of their interoperability. This will see improvements across inventory management, transactional exchanges, data management, creative logistics, creative optimization and, of course, reporting, all areas for systemization. Consolidation of networks, agreement on standards, and system integration will show Digital Out-of-Home gearing up to be a real force this year.

How would the AdTech industry further grow with the maturity of data science and analytics?

In the Digital OOH (DOOH) space, we are rich in data. While data aggregation and uniformity is still a challenge, especially with some campaigns using up to 15 separate data feeds, we have the benefit of permanent screen technology and can, therefore, build a data picture of the location, the changing conditions, and audiences. Audience insights boost our ability to make advertising creatives contextual and relevant, and more impactful. It also enables targeted Out-of-Home ad buys, which are only activated when the conditions are right, leading to improvements in audience targeting efficiency.

Real-time campaign reporting from third-party verification platforms such as PlayTrack also offers advertisers the ability to assess campaign success and optimize creative on the go. This level of transparency and accountability is crucial for the programmatic future of Digital OOH. Further down the line again — increased data sharing through the blockchain will fuel omnichannel and omniscreen campaigns with much smarter cross-platform audience planning. With more electronic devices in everyone’s pockets, connected, cross-platform digital platforms campaigns will become a programmatic reality.

Tell us more about QDOT.

QDOT is an AdTech business designed to facilitate smart, scalable campaign management for digital OOH. These digital-asset management tools were originally developed and used as in-house processes, for Grand visual clients. But as the market grew and evolved to become a flexible, tactical, and real-time platform, just like other digital mediums, Out-of-Home required the infrastructure and creative toolkits to handle the growing volume of creative. That’s why we launched QDOT and opened up our platforms and services to the entire market.

To deliver Spotify’s Wrapped campaign, for example, over 7,640 personalized playlists were shared globally. OpenLoop, the smart campaign management platform from QDOT, allowed users to submit their personalized Wrapped stats and see them published on iconic digital billboards around the world. OpenLoop ingested the data and automated the delivery just moments later. Before OpenLoop, campaigns like this would have been a logistical nightmare. It’s about providing ease of use and driving creativity.

How did you prepare for the execution of the ‘Wrapped’ campaign?

Spotify sent us a version of their data schema and a mock-up of the creative. We tested the schema across our platforms and suggested refinements. Our software is very versatile and is able to ingest feeds to match them against physical locations and media plans. Pairing this with our creative and content development made the whole process very smooth for us and the client.

At Grand Visual, how do you combine creative technology with data? Could you lead us through your data analytics operations before launching any DOOH/OTT campaigns?

Data crafting is part of what we do. We evaluate all the sources of data that are available and decide how and what to use in order to enhance the brand story and bring the campaign to life. It’s not about using data and technology for the sake of it, we approach data carefully with the brand story always at the heart of what we do. It’s rule-based and creative-driven data science.

How do you prepare for an AI-focused world? Which technologies are you most keen to learn more about?

Grand Visual’s job is to craft creative stories based on the data sources available. So, we’re interested in Machine Learning algorithms and Predictive Analytics based on historical data. Both on a media buying level as well as content creation. If we can predict consumer behaviour — we can base messages on real-world outcomes.

Unified programmatic planning and creative optimization is the end goal, where Planning, Buying, Distribution, Playback, and Reporting are programmatically achieved using real-time audience information and data insight to drive the decision-making process. So. right now creating standards, is a core challenge for the industry. Globally agreed standards for independent 3rd-party verification of advertising play-outs (down to a panel and individual play level), will support the growth of the digital OOH market globally. Making it easier to run digital campaigns at scale across all DOOH channels.

To promote the importance of regular sight tests for maintaining and protecting eye health, Specsavers has launched a tactical digital OOH campaign ahead of National Eye Health Week. The ‘More important than’ campaign leads on topical one liners that react to some of the more trivial news stories, TV gossip and what’s trending, and remarks that regular eye tests really matter. It follows research from Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) and Specsavers that at least 50% of all sight loss is avoidable.

The campaign runs on predominantly roadside screens, alongside rail, across 12 UK cities from 11^th – 25^th September 2017.

‘More important than’, which is being created in-house by Specsavers Creative and produced by Grand Visual, is a departure from Specsavers’ long running much-loved ‘Should’ve Gone to Specsavers’ concept.  Instead, reactive, contextual and locally relevant copy lines pose suggestions like: “More important than leaking phones” and “More important than post-match handshakes”. The statements are followed by the call to action to book an eye test at specsavers.co.uk.

The reactive campaign is managed and delivered through OpenLoop, the dynamic digital OOH campaign management platform from QDOT. Specsavers updates copy instantly through OpenLoop’s dashboard with the ability to target digital billboards at a National and City level. The OOH activity is planned and booked by Talon Outdoor and Manning Gottlieb OMD, and supports a broader campaign serving topical updates across print, digital, and social channels throughout the course of the day.

Graham Daldry, Creative Director at Specsavers, said:

“This is a new direction for us and a renewed focus on being fresh and topical while focusing on a coherent campaign that delivers across all of the digital touchpoints. By piggy backing off the current news and gossip we can deliver a targeted and engaging campaign with local relevance to make sure our important message for maintaining eye health cuts through.”

Dan Dawson, Chief Creative Technology Officer at Grand Visual commented:

“This is digital OOH at its best. Reactive, targeted, relevant copy that is updated throughout the day. By harnessing the ‘context effect’ the media is working hard for the client delivering an important message in an intelligent way.”

Jo Fisher, Head of Retail at Talon, who booked the campaign, added:

“This is Specsavers’ first digital OOH campaign, and we have really pushed the boundaries with technology, using content around topical news, gossip and events that will be delivered to hand selected premium digital sites. The dynamic, targeted and contextual campaign brilliantly showcases how digital OOH can work for targeted proximity campaigns, and at a national scale.”

Spectacular fan reactions to the wildly popular Game of Thrones drama, now in its seventh series, are being captured and shared moments later in a new UGC powered digital OOH campaign from Sky Atlantic. The campaign taps into the buzz and excitement of the show’s phenomenal online and social engagement across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and publishes the best UGC fan-reactions in a nationwide dynamic digital billboard push on the 1st, 22nd, and 29th August 2017.

The digital OOH campaign consists of 3 bursts of activity following pivotal story-plot moments in the hit fantasy drama, during episodes 3, 6 and 7. Produced by Grand Visual, the creative features the best fan reactions shared via the hashtags #GoTS7, #GameofThrones and #WinterIsHere, in the form of tweets, images, and Boomerang videos.

The UGC content is collated, moderated and distributed to multiple media owners through OpenLoop, QDOT’s dynamic digital OOH campaign management platform, just hours after each episode airs.

The UGC powered OOH campaign was created by Sky Atlantic and planned by Rapport and forms part of a broader outdoor and multi-channel push spanning TV, radio, digital, and social.

This Game of Thrones fan-led campaign capitalises on the shows prolific social buzz, providing a fun and fresh execution that drives intrigue and excitement around key episodes and events. Digital OOH is the ideal medium for broadcasting online conversations whilst rewarding participation from the shows hardcore fanbase.

Dan Dawson, chief creative technology officer at Grand Visual, said:

“This fully integrated campaign makes the most of Digital OOH’s ability to react and evolve to social triggers and conversations. Its scale and immediacy make it the perfect platform to amplify this season’s highlights whilst engaging loyal fans with a humorous playout, that extends the life and reach of the show’s social strategy.”