Back in late November, 2015, I went to visit my sister in Berlin over a weekend. On the Sunday, we wondered around downtown former West Berlin and for the briefest of moments, the weather was kind. Less than an hour later, whilst standing by the Brandenburg Gate, it was a very different story, with heavy, sustained snowfall for the rest of the afternoon.
As I was travelling light, I had only my Nokia 1020 with me, which I took this shot on.
At the end of 2014, I travelled up to Hong Kong from Singapore, where the weather was mercifully cooler than the incessant heat of the tropics. That said, I have never found 15 degrees Celsius so cold.
One morning, I took a gander along the path that runs circumnavigates the Peak, taking in views of Aberdeen Bay on one side with Hong Kong downtown and Kowloon Bay beyond on the other. This shot was taken on Boxing Day. The smog filtered the early rays of sunshine, dirtying the blue sky with hues of brown and grey.
What struck me most was more based about my Western sensitivities. Hong Kong had hardly missed a beat even though we were in the middle of the Christmas holidays. Then again, I do not believe that Hong Kong ever truly sleeps.
Marmite sponsored the Oxford Street lights for Christmas 2012. Their active campaign at the time was based around the ‘you either love it or hate it’ concept.
My team had been challenged with coming up with an imaginative way to bring this concept to life socially, primarily based on Facebook. The conclusion was to invite consumers to take pictures, demonstrating their love or hate of Marmite, which was uploaded onto a digital interactive bus shelter on London’s Oxford Street, by Selfridges. This bus shelter, just below the interactive display, was fitted with a 55” interactive screen and camera that enabled visitors to have their photo taken.
The interactive Christmas Lights display was a first for Oxford Street.
Aside from public generated images, the giant digital display also featured a series of Christmas Characters including Father Christmas and his elves, revealing their passion, positive or negative, for Marmite.
After moderation of the face shots, we sent participants an email with a designated time for when their image will appear on the screen. For people who were unable to view their face on the Marmite banner in situ, we set up a Facebook CCTV feed and broadcast live footage to the Marmite FB channel as well as an online gallery.
In addition to Facebook design, build and installation, we also got involved in the physical installation, as the crews shut down sections of Oxford Street through the night and trucks moved in to hoist the displays into place. Based in a test booth on the rooftop of Selfridges, we uploaded images to the display below, hanging around 15m above the street.
With an anticipated 40 million visitors expected to shop at London’s Oxford Street during Christmas, the sign had a very significant audience.
The display won a Silver Creative Circle 2013 for Digital: Best use of DOOH.
Here are some images of the physical installation of the display.
All Terrain Photography 