OOH Creativity: D&AD Awards Showcase the Best-in-Class

D&AD and JCDecaux: a joint mission for the future of creativity

D&AD (Design & Art Direction) is a non-profit organisation established in the UK in the 60’s to represent, promote and celebrate creativity. It has since grown into a global bastion for promoting creativity. Its annual festival has become a capital for creative design expression and its programmes nurture the next generation of creative talent around the world.
JCDecaux’s partnership with D&AD reinforces the Group’s mission “to create inspiring cityscapes that brighten and enrich people’s lives” – creativity is at the heart of this mission. Although OOH planning and delivery has advanced further than ever before, creativity will always remain paramount to delivering exceptional campaigns that connect and speak to people. The partnership allows the two organisations to promote and broadcast the importance and the creative potential of the OOH medium to all key creative stakeholders in the industry, while inspiring a new generation of creatives to think about the medium in new ways.

What went on

The three-day festival took place at the Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, London and consisted of keynote presentations, panel discussions & Q&A’s with an opportunity to see all the entries.

The Hot Topics

The key OOH themes of the festival this year were Disruption, Re-writing the Rules and Vandalism from the perspective of how creatives can respond and demonstrate optimism toward the traditional value propositions of OOH. 
Discussions included topics like the traditional strengths of OOH from broadcast messaging to brand safety. The case of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg choosing press instead of online advertising to communicate his message following the Cambridge Analytica scandal was not forgotten.
Advancement of Digital OOH (DOOH) has made the medium more agile than ever before, and its powers of concise messaging and building brand fame in the new era of transparency pushed creatives to explore how traditional media could showcase their work in new and innovative ways. This year, OOH took centre stage for the famous “Pencil” awards, check out some of our favourites, that demonstrate the key ingredients of excellent OOH - arresting visuals and smart, succinct and instantly recognisable messaging.

The Pencils

What’s next? New Blood and the future of creativity

For JCDecaux’s own brief, we partnered with the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in support of the #LondonIsOpen initiative. The OOH brief is for students and is all about celebrating diversity and inclusivity in this international urban hub. The brief challenges young creatives to tell this story on one of London's most exclusive OOH networks on Europe's busiest street - 50 digital LDN screens on Oxford Street where their work will be exposed to almost 14,000 people every hour! So far, there’s been over 2,600 downloads and 189 entries. Will any of them make the grade and win a prestigious pencil?
Watch this space!