LUMO Digital Outdoor Pixel Award Winners

Tristan Cotterill

New Zealand’s only national pure-play digital out-of-home advertising company LUMO opened its second Pixel Awards competition for entries in February and just over two weeks ago, the Pixel’s judges came together to review the dozens of entries.

LUMO co-founder and CEO Phil Clemas says one of the things he continues to see missing from almost all outdoor advertising, is the regular use of dynamic or interactive ad content.

He told us “The Pixels were invented to inspire and educate agencies and brands about the dynamic and interactive capabilities digital out-of-home has to offer. We want to get creatives excited, to get their imaginations flowing and help them apply some of these ideas and concepts into potential campaigns.”

Judging the second round of the Pixel Awards saw both the quality of entries and understanding of the possibilities for digital out-of-home noticeably improve. The judging panel was made up of a number of New Zealand’s creative luminaries including Letizia Bozzolini, Bex Radford, Chris Schofield and Peter Vegas, with convenors James Polhill from Hello Ltd and Kent Harrison, co-founder and executive vice president from LUMO.

Peter Vegas, creative director for Draft FCB said “The ideas were wide and varied, but we did see that the thinking was generally more focused on the connection between the technology LUMO has available, the idea and the way it is translated onto large digital screens.”

In recognition of their creativity, translation and relevance to the brand’s proposition, the Pixel Award for Q1 2020 went to the creative team of Jake Blood and Josh Thompson from DDB. Their Sky Sport ‘Commuters Cup’ concept utilised LUMO’s Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) technology in a fun and interactive way. The team takes home a cash prize of $5,000, free media for their client across LUMO’s nationwide digital media network worth $30,000 and the coveted Pixel trophy.

Jake Blood said “LUMO billboards are kitted out with some impressive technology, which got us thinking about a bunch of clever ways to use it. We wanted to make something that people, travelling nearby, would find fun. We feel lucky to have a platform in New Zealand that allows us to play our ‘Life needs more sport’ concept.”

Every LUMO screen has its own ANPR camera that collects granular vehicular data in real-time, and LUMO is the only digital out-of-home operator in the world that does so across its entire network.

The Pixel Awards are a quarterly competition, with rounds three and four opening in May and August. All entries are done online via the Pixel Awards website so is ‘Covid-19 Lockdown’ proof. Each quarterly winner will receive $30,000 of free media on LUMO’s nationwide network, a $5,000 cash prize and the Pixel trophy.

This year, the quarterly winners from February, May and August will automatically qualify as finalists for the Annual Pixel Award, with the ultimate winner being announced as part of the Pixel Awards Showcase, which will be held in October. This will be an opportunity to present and celebrate the twenty entries from the year for all to see and will give ample time to prepare for their #SXSW experience the following March.

LUMO hopes what comes out of the Pixel Awards is far greater use of digital billboards, more effective advertising for clients and positive long-term benefits for all stakeholders in the digital out-of-home sector.


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