Grand Visual Awards Wins The Wires Digital OOH Awards
To cap off a huge year, we were incredibly proud to find ourselves the recipients of three awards, from three different awards programs, across two continents, on one evening.

To be recognised for all the hard work and effort that goes into delivering a successful campaign is incredibly rewarding. And without further ado, the winners are… 

Our evening began at ExchangeWire’s “The Wires” ceremony in London. Picking up the gong for “Best DOOH Campaign” was Hiscox with Cyber Live. Since its initial run in February 2018, this clever campaign has picked up an incredible eight awards, with The Wires bringing the total up to nine.

What makes Cyber Live a winner is it’s unique and intelligent creative. By using real-life hackers to power the campaign, Hiscox brought to life a threat that often goes unseen but can have a major impact on small businesses. In just one week the honeypot servers were attacked over 195,000 times, highlighting the very real threat and bringing to the forefront the need for cyber insurance. 

In a nearby corner of London, The Drum “Creative OOH Awards” were also taking place. Nominated for the “International Campaign” award, our global collaboration with Spotify for their annual “Wrapped” campaign saw their first real-time DOOH activation, come out on top!

The largest multi-market, dynamic execution ever for digital OOH, the campaign brought the brand’s end of the year wrap up to life. Taking advantage of DOOH’s dynamic capabilities, 2018 Wrapped gave Spotify users the chance to be featured on an iconic billboard in their closest city, alongside some of the world’s biggest stars.

Our evening ends over 5,000 miles away in Los Angeles, at the “CLIO” awards, a prestigious ceremony for the entertainment industry. It was an honour to win bronze in the “Entertainment Digital Outdoor” category for our collaboration with Amazon Prime for Good Omens. The Times Square take-over picked up its second award this month, having just won an ABBI award for Best Local Execution.

Using augmented reality to bring the apocalypse to life, the audience was plunged into Armageddon scenarios, with fish raining down from the sky, UFOs and even a Kraken. Based on the novel of the same name, the campaign was loved and shared online by one of the authors, successfully bringing the pages of the book to life.

What makes these campaigns award-winning, is having a strong understanding of the target audience. For Hiscox, it was highlighting the need for small business owners to protect themselves from cyber-criminals. Spotify rewarded its listeners with their own moment in the spotlight and Good Omens provided an immersive experience for potential viewers of the new series. And all three of these campaigns used the digital OOH medium in different ways, showcasing the full storytelling potential of digital OOH.

Dan Dawson, CCO Grand Visual said: 

“It’s absolutely amazing to be recognised with multiple awards and in multiple countries for our work – that it was all on one night makes it that little bit more exciting. Not only do these awards recognise the team at Grand Visual, who work so hard to fulfil our client’s vision, but to see these campaigns showcased as best in class examples of DOOH is something to be really proud of. As the medium continues to grow and change, it’s great to see brands being rewarded for their creative vision. Creativity is at the heart of everything that we do and storytelling is our ethos. It’s where we win.”

If you want to talk to us about any of your upcoming digital OOH campaigns, then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

Spotify Wrapped 2018 DOOH
On 6th December 2018, Spotify extended its popular end of year marketing campaign ‘Wrapped’ with a real-time, digital OOH campaign.

The campaign sees subscribers’ music habits streamed live to digital billboards around the world including, Time Square and Piccadilly Lights. The campaign celebrates the importance of music in people’s lives and Spotify’s role as the platform of discovery.

Produced by Grand Visual, the digital OOH creative features the user’s profile picture alongside their top artists, songs, and genres, and time spent listening. OpenLoop, the digital OOH campaign management platform from QDOT, takes the live data feed from Spotify and distributes the creative to media owners across the USA, Canada, Australia, UK, and France.

Already gracing traditional billboards across the world, this is the first real-time OOH activation for the music brand and the largest multi-market live execution for the medium. The campaign was planned and booked by UM London and Rapport and ran through to December 31st.

“Our annual Wrapped ad campaign is a true embodiment of our proposition as a ‘platform for discovery.’ Our users have come to expect the year-end wrapped campaign year after year, and are eager to see how their interactions on Spotify connect to what is happening across the global Spotify community. At the same time, it serves as a large-scale ‘thank you’ to our listeners for their collective impact in shaping the platform throughout the year while further solidifying our place in the global cultural lexicon.”

June Sauvaget, Spotify’s Global Head of Consumer Marketing

“This is a great example of how digital brands are embracing the OOH medium more than ever before. Now that the systems and platforms are in place, a real-time data-driven multi-market activation is a natural progression for Spotify Wrapped, which seeks to reward listeners with a moment of fame and their name and music tastes in lights, on digital billboards close to home.”

Dan Dawson, Chief Creative Technology Officer, Grand Visual