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London advertising landmarks including Piccadilly Lights and BFI IMAX will once again switch off for an hour this weekend to symbolise a moment of global unity for nature restoration
Two gold-winning British DOOH entries will compete for the prize
Eleven creative agencies are fighting it out to win Ocean Outdoor’s inaugural Grand Prix, a new award which draws together the winners from its annual Digital Creative Competitions.
All of the contenders are the gold-winning ideas from Ocean’s Digital Creative Competitions, which rewarded original out-of-home (OOH) and digital out-of-home (DOOH) advertising concepts.
As well as the UK, local competitions took place in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands.
The Digital Creative Competition, which started in the UK 15 years ago and has since been rolled out into Europe as Ocean has expanded, attracted a record 360 entries this year, the largest number of entries ever received.
The winners of the UK arm of the competition were announced on October 9th. A panel of 23 independent judges drawn from the creative and media industries selected this year’s winners which were announced at an industry event hosted by Ocean at Bloomsbury Ballroom in London.
The winning concepts were awarded space on Ocean's UK DOOH network to bring their ideas to life, as well as sharing a prize pot of £500,000.
Gold in the UK Commercial category went to McVitie’s and To Boldly Go, for their campaign ‘Dare to Dunk?’. The DOOH campaign involved an interactive game about dunking chocolate digestives, powered by haptics and gesture control.
The game had a prize element with 100 chances to win per day including rewards for near-perfect efforts and a grand prize for those who ‘mastered the ultimate dunk’. A live ‘dunkerboard’ added a competitive edge, encouraging social media sharing.
Describing the winning entry at the time, judges said: “This game is simple, inherently British, and made us smile. It’s educative about the product’s characteristics, there are several moving parts, and we especially liked the ‘dunkerboard’. It’s a silly idea and people have had fun.”
Gold in the UK Non-Profit category went to the ‘You Can’t Jail This Billboard’ campaign made for Greenpeace by Elvis Communications. The campaign aims to point out that DOOH billboards have more freedom than the average peaceful protester. Greenpeace activists protest from ‘inside’ digital screens, where they are in no danger of jail as opposed to the situation outside of them.
The judges said: “This makes you stop and think. It breaks free from the confines around protesting to protect the planet and will create conversation. OOH is where the people are and that is right in the heart of local communities. It has a sort of poetry about it.”
To Boldly Go and Elvis now enter the Grand Prix competition, which includes European agencies such as Nordea Group Creative, The Barn, Total Design, and Higuita.
The Grand Prix winner is awarded a one-week campaign across what has been described as six of “Europe’s most iconic digital screens”, including The Amsterdam Leidseplein, Stockholm’s Halo, The Cube in Oslo, and London’s Piccadilly Lights.
While contenders will be judged on their original concepts, the winner can use the screen space for any brand campaign of its choice.
Ocean Outdoor also recently announced that it has added a new screen at the Carnaby shopping district in central London.
Measuring 6m x 3m, the landscape screen is positioned above The London Palladium Wall of Fame which is opposite the north entrance to Soho’s Carnaby Street and the world-famous luxury retailer Liberty.
The screen launches with a campaign from adidas, which has a store in the district, featuring its ‘FW24 Originals’ campaign. Planned along with agency EssenceMediacom, the campaign runs until October 31st.
