INDUSTRY ICONS
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Located in the heart of central London, Outernet transforms public buildings into an immersive sensory experience. Viewers are treated to a full 360° surrounding of LCD screens to stimulate their visual and auditory senses. Outernet is not simply a space – it is a
fusion of traditional entertainment and cutting-edge tech
falling from the sky and interactive snow angels. We brought Uniqlo on to sponsor that experience and work it alongside their brand. Is the advertising landscape shifting? Over the past 12 months, we’ve worked with some of the biggest cultural organisations in the UK and abroad. Everywhere from the Royal College of Art and National Trust to the BBC and Abbey Road Studios – plus major brands like Netflix, L’Oréal, Marc Jacobs, Uniqlo, TripAdviser, Peugeot and Amazon. Some of the biggest blue-chip brands in the world are coming to us as a space to do brand storytelling and immersive experiences through experiential activations. One of the best things about Outernet – in my opinion – is that it has all the technology and AV built to bring these brands and organisations’ ideas and storytelling to life. Brands are realising that it’s not enough to just push out a 60-second video on social media. They are starting to embrace the technology they have at their fingertips at spaces like Outernet, to create deeper levels of engagement with their audiences. I think that’s what immersive and experiential advertising does: create connection and memories by allowing consumers to step into the world of the brand. L’Oréal was an amazing example of that. They transformed the Now building into a Parisian street. The screens built out beautiful Parisian storefronts – they had a photo experience where you could get into one of the cars with a big lipstick on the end. Several different brand touch points throughout the space were so memorable for audience members. I think this kind of approach is an example of pushing advertising beyond where it has ever been before – and in a really positive way. I believe originally – years ago when first talking about what this space was going to be – we were cognisant of becoming a space purely for screen advertising with none of the physical,
combination, it unleashes an ultimate canvas for storytelling. On top of this, all the AVs were supported by an incredibly advanced tech stack. The entire district is run by real-time engines provided by Ventuz. They are fantastic at being able to handle the amounts of media we’re playing on screen at any one time. All the screen spaces have immersive interactive cameras built into the system because interactivity is at the heart of building immersive experiences. It allows us to push out content, changing it from being a passive experience to an active one – asking our audiences to engage with that content and play a part in the co-creation of it. This, in turn, encourages a change in viewing habits – from simply coming in to look at pictures on screens to actually engaging with them. Some examples include using a phone to engage in augmented reality experiences within the space, walking up to cameras and being able to have gestural emotional experiences – whether that’s gamified into literally being able to play games or walking up to a wall and flapping your arms to create digital snow angels. It’s very important for us to layer in that creative and immersive experience technology into everything we’re doing. You mentioned cultural experiences being at the heart of Outernet. Could you share some examples? Being a space in the heart of central London, there are key cultural moments that matter to our audiences and us as a space. Historically, that’s been things like International Women’s Month, Pride, Black History Month, Christmas – and creating experiences around those key cultural moments. Just recently, I created an experience called the ‘enchanted snow globe’ for Christmas within the district, which involved creating a life-size, enchanted alpine globe – with a beautiful, hand-animated scene that involved real-time technology. We had snow
They are starting to embrace the technology they have at their fingertips at spaces such as Outernet, to create deeper levels of engagement”
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