The 50th anniversary of the Kinsale Shark advertising festival took place last weekend by the banks of the River Bandon. The international advertising, media and design community descended on Kinsale, the medieval Irish town, to attend one of the oldest independent advertising festivals in the world.

The festival jury panel, chaired by Trevor Beattie, loved Grand Visual’s work for the National Centre for Domestic Violence and also for the Microloan Foundation. Microloan’s ‘Pennies for Life’ achieved 5 gongs in total including 4 gold’s for International Outdoor Craft (Best Interactive), International Integrated Campaign, International Live Event, and Digital Outdoor, as well as a bronze in the Physical Digital category.

American Express, in partnership with Grand Visual and OgilvyOne UK, instigated the UK’s first ever interactive billboard campaign that sends location-based content direct to user’s phones.

The campaign ran on JCDecaux Transvision screens across 10 of London’s biggest train stations and was designed to help passengers make the most of their travels. Passers-by were encouraged to send an SMS message, including their name, to ‘London’s Insider Tip Generator’ to get their own personalised and location specific message featured on the billboard.

Each text triggered a personalised piece of information or tip highlighting insider knowledge about the area local to them e.g. “A tip for Tim: Look outside Kings Cross station and see if you can spot a 19th century lighthouse!” The participant also received the tip as an SMS message, so they could take it away with them and share.

The campaign runs until the middle of June. SMS integration is managed through Grand Visual’s OpenLoop platform allowing moderation and the publishing of tips instantly across all 10 sites from a desktop location.

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.