In 2024, Grand Visual Predicts AI, Anamorphic, and Creativity Will Take Centre Stage

Jay Young, managing director> As the digital OOH landscape expands, there is an ever-increasing opportunity for brands to make their ads hyper contextualised – ensuring they speak directly to the specific audience in front of each screen. Less than 1% of OOH campaigns are contextualised at the moment. This is embarrassing and needs to change throughout 2024. 

Dan Dawson, chief creative officer> A few years ago we saw great strides with mobile, social and DOOH creative and DCO working together. In 2023 we started to see CTV and DOOH going the same way, and for a creative team specialising in programmatic creative and DCO this offers huge potential. The trend will see more programmatic players entering the DOOH world, more money being spent on DOOH media and, conversely, creative that creates impact. Couple that with the fact that in 2024 we have a number of global, cultural, sporting, and political events that lend themselves to dynamically updating content. As the two great mediums converge, creative optimisation and reversioning will become more important as the moments, mindsets, and audiences change; brands’ messaging will need to react accordingly. 

Ben Gardiner, head of client services> CGI/faux OOH is something I expect to be huge next year. There are already a heap of great examples in the marketplace and were working with several brands on 2024 projects already. I expect the examples will get bigger and more outrageous and we’ll start to see smaller brands see this as an affordable way of flexing their creative muscles. The real winners will however be those brands who combine real life activations with CGI. The powerful blend of authenticity, surprise and craft will supercharge the impact and emotional response cross channel. 

I do think we might start to see these executions become regulated in some way. Brands may be required to be more overt about when their executions aren’t real, and we may see the debate around license fees for the digital rights to landmarks gather momentum.  

Freddie Pearce, MGFX director> I think it’s pretty evident that anamorphic creatives have exploded across OOH over the past year or so. These are achieved using the same basic principles chalk illusion artists have been using for (according to Google) 500 years. As a team, we have been working on several exciting ways to push the boundaries in this space – we're now just waiting for the perfect creative brief to bring them to life. 3D has been amazing but there’s still so much more scope to go bigger, better and bolder. 

Mariel Hernandez, client director> Interactive 3D DOOH really has a shot at being a leading trend this year! Can we have the creative change based on our audience’s decisions? Can we build avatars into 3D DOOH creative? The possibilities are endless... 

Jay> Data has been a hot topic in OOH for a number of years and rightly so but sometimes the focus on optimising media plans at site level has come at a creative cost. We’re starting to see the dial shift again and our clients and agencies are increasing the attention they give to the creative that sits within the poster. If we fail to make a creative impact, no amount of audience optimisation can deliver the ROI our clients need and deserve. I’m going to be singing this message from the hilltops and making sure all our clients pay attention!  

Ben> The digitisation of OOH formats is never going to be a positive thing for real world creative builds that brands still love to embrace. Digitisation makes sense for brands and the OOH industry in so many ways, however it also risks marginalising old-fashioned creativity in the space. So many incredible OOH executions that people know and love wouldn’t have been possible without traditional OOH. We’ve already started migrating to other OOH canvases for these executions and expect that to continue apace. It will move the goalposts, but I worry a little about those more simplistic, small-scale or close-up concepts that clients can execute at scale and in an affordable way.  

Jon> There has already been an uptick in AI generated visuals and I think this will only be continuing. Whilst some of the generated visuals can be impressive, the key is in the individual creativity, rather than simply rehashing a previous idea. I believe humans will prevail in creating unique and memorable campaigns that people are more likely to remember.  

Mariel> The uptick in CGI or FOOH from leading brands in 2023 was an interesting one... Many believe it could pose a challenge to the OOH industry, but I believe in 2024 we will aim to embrace it and learn how to tie it back to real world activations that help us truly engage with our audience.  

Jay> We created a Manhattan-wide digital Truffle Hunt to celebrate the release of Shake Shack America’s White Truffle burger. The game was accessed via QR codes on DOOH screens across the city and over 13,000 New Yorkers tried their luck. That’s some serious engagement for one city.    

Dan> Last year our early 2023 work for FCB NY on Budweiser, ‘The Stage is Yours to Take’ set up the rest of the year to be a stormer. This highly creative and immersive campaign ticked all of the boxes for Grand Visual, with digital, solutions and experience running through the entire project.  

Ric> Grand Visual embraced the world of 3D DOOH this year, and we did a range of campaigns both nationally and internationally. They bring a whole new creative challenge to them, so I’d say each one was a highlight, from Lenovo and F1 on Piccadilly Lights to 7UP across a range of formats. We worked on the ‘Wonka’ campaign for over half a year, and seeing the fruit of our labours succeed has been a proud moment for all of us. 

Ben> I’ve said it before but for me the work that PepsiCo has been doing in the OOH space this year has been incredibly impressive to see. As a brand, they are really living by the principles they set at the start of the year and throwing themselves out of their comfort zone. Crucially though, it’s amazing to see the rewards of these risks paying off and moving the dial for them internally and on the streets. The work they did at the Outernet and Liverpool in Summer for Stormzy x Rockstar was the first major step on this journey. Since then, they seem to have embraced the most omnipresent OOH Christmas campaign that I remember seeing from any brand. 

Freddie> Truly it’s been a wild year as a creative in GV, where the sheer variety of campaigns make it hard to choose, but working on one half of the cultural phenomenon that was ‘Barbenheimer’ was a special experience, with an overload of pink and sparkles forever burned into my brain... and heart. I’m expecting there’s a lot more to come where that came from. Hopefully also featuring Ryan Gosling. 

Pete> One that stood out for me was ‘Wonka’. As a team, I think we all excelled from creative concepting, all the way to the final executions. Seeing the work we created across the globe, in cinemas and on social media was just delicious!  

Jamie> I joined late in 2023 but 'Wonka' was an absolute highlight. Seeing the 3D creative on one screen reach over 30m people from a single TikTok post was wild. I have no doubt that as we continue to blend real-life creative OOH with the likes of AR and FOOH, we will see even more of our campaigns reach the dizzy heights that 'Wonka' did.