Leading Grand Visual with Jay Young: Embracing Change and Championing Creativity

Out-of-home (OOH) leverages the great outdoors as a marketing canvas. It’s something Grand Visual has been specialising in since its inception, and that Jay Young (GV’s new managing director) has dedicated much of his career to. When he was promoted a few months ago from client chief officer, he didn’t expect his new role to feel much different, but admits it’s been quite the change. Being able to work with all the teams across the business is something he takes great satisfaction in, as well as creative problem solving, of course. However, he remains deeply connected to the core of the work – jumping in on briefs and maintaining a hands-on approach to creativity. For Jay, there’s nothing like the buzz of crafting an idea, then seeing it come to life. 

In this interview, we take a look at some of Jay’s favourite projects, from the global success of the BBC Dracula shadow billboard, to the viral Specsavers stunts. We get a peak into his creative process, and the importance of GV’s ‘people-first’ philosophy. We also explore the convergence of OOH and experiential marketing, the advancements in 3D advertising and DOOH, and the impact of new technologies on the industry. Here’s how it went...

LBB> Jay, what has been your favourite project that you’ve worked on thus far?

Jay> I loved so many projects and despised a few too! Our BBC Dracula shadow billboard was perhaps one of the most exciting. It was the first project I worked on that went viral globally. We trended worldwide on Reddit; the tabloids loved the billboard and our content on social was an overnight success in all corners of the globe. It was a wild few days with a constant buzz of excitement. 

We’ve had similar reactions to our Specsavers stunts, our Pepsi Max bus shelter, the PlayStation takeover of Oxo tower, our Oreo eclipse billboard which made a recent comeback on social media and many more.  

LBB> You’re said to be a strong representation of GV’s ‘people-first’ philosophy. Why do you consider this philosophy essential when approaching OOH production?

Jay> I’m glad to hear it. Any business, but particularly creative agencies, rely upon groups of happy, healthy and collaborative people. We can’t succeed without it. Some businesses may get by for short windows by squeezing their staff and prioritising bottom line but it’s not sustainable. 

Media is also an industry where relationships are imperative. When things go wrong and you’re in a serious spot, you need partners, suppliers and your team to step up and go beyond. People only do that for people they’ve built strong relationships with and respect.    

LBB> The recent 3D advert for Specsavers was quite clever. Could you talk about your creative process when it comes to designing these kinds of ads? How much guidance are you typically given from a brand’s brief, and to what extent do you have the creative freedom in developing the concept?

Jay> It’s different on every brief. Sometimes a client or agency will come to us with a pretty well-formed idea, and they just need our guidance on how to navigate the landscape and turn the idea into a reality. Other briefs, such as the recent Specsavers example, are very open and give us the creative freedom to take it anywhere we feel will work. These briefs can be amazing because we’re totally unshackled, and we get to challenge ourselves but they’re also not easy. Unlike other channels the world is our canvas – not just a few pixels constrained to a mobile handset or TV screen.   

LBB> Grand Visual recently stated that OOH and experiential marketing are becoming intertwined and can no longer be seen as separate channels. Can you expand on this idea and explain why it’s important for brands to keep this in mind?

Jay> Some brands still divide up their OOH and experiential budgets into two pots. Often these pots are managed by entirely different teams and with different agencies. This needs to end, otherwise brands risk missing out of the benefits of planning them together. 

Measurement. The OOH industry has invested heavily in making sure billboards can be planned with the very best audience data available. Experiential locations are trailing behind in this world, landlords are often selling sites based on their own footfall data and have very little in the way of verification. At Grand Visual, we’re leveraging the audience analysis tools Talon built for OOH to help our clients find the very best sites for their audience. Helpfully, this often moves us away from the ‘go to’ locations you see in Campaign magazine every week and instead places us in locations that over-index for our audience, charge lower site fees and often benefit from higher engagement. 

Billboards have become experiential spaces in their own right. Some DOOH screens have cameras built in to facilitate things like augmented reality and interactivity, some can play sound and, in some cases, there is even event space directly in front of the screen. These locations are pre-prepped experiential canvases that brands need to leverage.      

Combining the two channels is powerful. If you build a brand experience in a shopping centre on a Saturday, you could be one of 10 brand activating experiences in the centre on that day. How do you make sure you cut through? You take the experience on stand, and you amplify it across DOOH across the centre. Take a photobooth for example, an experience giving fans the chance to green screen themselves into a famous movie poster. Why not take those images and instantly place them on screens all over the centre. This not only drives more footfall to stand, it amplifies the visibility of your experience generally and it provides some amazing surprise and delight for those that did interact. A relatively small investment can ensure you cut through – making the original brand experience even more valuable. 

LBB> Describe the state of 3D advertising when you first entered the industry. How has it changed over time? 

Jay> I come from the world of 3D projection mapping where we used 3D and anamorphic content to make iconic buildings look like they were doing crazy things – crumbling to the floor, morphing into something else and generally playing with depth and perception. 3D animation isn’t new. What’s new is the full motion DOOH landscape that we now get to play with across the world. Over the last 10 years, we’ve seen the significant digitisation of the OOH landscape and it’s allowing us to do some incredible things with content. As we see more screens go in the ground and more locations offering full motion, we’ll continue to push the boundaries of 3D worldwide.   

LBB> Are there any new technologies or strategies that you are particularly excited about incorporating into advertising efforts?

Jay> I get asked this all the time! The fact is, 10 years ago there were new technologies launching every year – the landscape was just beginning its digitisation and consumer technology was developing at pace. Now we just see the same tech getting better and more stable. That’s fantastic for us as developers and creative technologists but it’s not very sexy for agencies and clients.

AI is of course changing the way we do things, but does it make us better? I don’t think so, it just makes us more efficient. It’s optimising our processes, it’s reducing lag and it’s taking the weight off some of our manual processes.  

LBB> Are there any exciting projects you are working on now that you can talk to us about?

Jay> We do have some very exciting campaigns coming up, we always do but none that I can share at the moment. Watch this space! Some of the team will be heading to Cannes to see some of the incredible work across the advertising industry and get a chance to catch up with some of our lovely clients and partners. You will also be seeing a lot more around our latest tech innovation Rapid Versioning, in the coming months.