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British biscuit brand McVitie’s and London-based agency To Boldly Go won Ocean’s inaugural Grand Prix for the ‘Dare to dunk?’ interactive campaign
The winner of Ocean Outdoor’s inaugural Digital Creative Competition Grand Prix has been announced, with a UK entry winning this year’s prize.
The competition, newly created by Ocean Outdoor for 2025, highlights projects judged to be outstanding examples of digital out-of-home (DOOH) campaigns. The jurors for the Grand Prix included a range of senior figures drawn from major European advertising agencies.
The competition draws together the winners from its annual Digital Creative Competitions. As well as the UK, local competitions took place in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and the Netherlands. From these winners, 11 creative agencies fought it out to win the Grand Prix.
The winner of the award this year is the ‘Dare to dunk?’ campaign by London-based agency To Boldly Go and biscuit brand McVitie’s.
The DOOH campaign features an interactive game powered by haptics and gesture control. Players use Ocean’s hand and gesture control technology to dunk a virtual McVitie’s biscuit, trying to hit the ‘sweet spot’ before the biscuit breaks.
The game includes the chance to win prizes, with rewards for near-perfect efforts and a grand prize for those who master the ‘ultimate dunk’. It also includes a live ‘dunkerboard’, where the best dunking results are listed.
Explaining why the ‘Dare to dunk?’ campaign was chosen, Ocean Outdoor group director of strategic marketing, Helen Haines, comments: “Our Grand Prix jury said the use of DOOH to explore the science behind biscuit dunking was fun, engaging, and will get people talking.
“From a creative and business perspective, this idea delivers value on every level, making McVitie’s and To Boldly Go worthy winners of our first ever Grand Prix.”
As the winners of the Grand Prix, McVitie’s and To Boldly Go receive an incremental prize over and above the £100,000 of screen space already awarded to them as last year’s UK Gold winners.
The prize includes a one week campaign of McVitie’s choice across what Ocean has called “six of Europe’s most iconic digital screens”. This includes the Amsterdam Leidseplein, Stockholm’s Halo, The Cube in Oslo, and London’s Piccadilly Lights.
Ocean’s video and creative production arm, Ocean Studio, will film the campaign, creating an asset to share across the winners’ digital and social channels.
Aslı Özen Turhan, chief marketing officer of parent company to McVitie’s, pladis UK and IreIand, says: "Winning the inaugural Grand Prix is extremely exciting.
“McVitie's is built on the positive benefits of bringing people together over a hot drink and a biscuit, an inherently British ritual for more than 180 years.
“The opportunity to expand our competitive challenge into new territories and communities is fantastic and we can't wait to spread our upcoming campaign far and wide.”
