The Campaign #CityLiveChallenge Winner is…

Maddie Cotterill

Team Sandoz and their client Macmillan Cancer Support have been announced as winner of The Campaign CityLive Challenge – winning GBP 50,000 of media space on MediaCo Outdoor’s CityLive touchscreen network in Manchester.

Launched this summer by MediaCo Outdoor and Campaign Magazine, the challenge saw team leaders Andy Sandoz (Havas Work Club) and Malin Hanas (Razorfish) and their respective teams, battle it out on behalf of Macmillan Cancer Support and The Booth Centre Manchester.

The brief was to create a campaign on MediaCo Outdoor’s interactive CityLive touchscreens in Manchester that would kick down any barriers to creative thinking in digital out-of-home.

  • Macmillan Cancer Support’s winning campaign was all about getting local people to not just see Macmillan, but to do something positive with Macmillan. The campaign was based around a crowd-sourced running event between two CityLive units, using a networked solution through the cloud to link the screens to each other. Facial detection software was then used to recognise runners and then software to time them between two CityLive units. Runners could then interact with the event by uploading photographs of themselves using CityLive’s inbuilt cameras to share on social media and encourage donations to the charity.
  • Team Hanas’ campaign for The Booth Centre was a very close runner up, using CityLive to change perceptions by storytelling in a data-driven and interactive way. It used real people at the Booth Centre who were filmed telling their own stories. This was loaded onto CityLive and inbuilt facial detection software was used as an automated content selector so that each of the stories was shown to the most appropriate audience. Viewers were invited to touch the hand of the person sharing their story in the film to trigger more information about the charity, their forthcoming Big Sleepout event and to donate.

The winner was decided last week by a judging panel of leading sector experts including Claire Beale, global editor-in-chief Campaign Magazine; Sue Unerman, chief strategy office MediaCom UK; Darren Bailes, executive creative director VCCP; Laura Jordan Bambach, D&AD president and creative partner Mr.President; Richard Blackburn, commercial director MediaCo Outdoor ands others.

Darren Bailes said “I loved the Team Sandoz work. The technology was used in a playful, joyous way. Not smart-arse or Hoxton-clever – just one brilliant element of an idea that has kids, mums and dads running along the street, having a laugh.”

Richard Blackburn told us “Both teams did a magnificent job delivering ground-breaking campaigns that really resonated with the audience. It was fantastic to see first hand how people loved being able to get hands on and involved with the content on the screens; and showed how powerful a brand advocate digital out of home can be when used in this way. Our thanks go to all involved in the Challenge”.


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