Nadja Lossgott and Nicholas Hulley are Creative Directors at AMV BBDO in London. In 2010 they were part of the team that won a Black Pencil for the Trillion Dollar campaign, and followed up in 2015 with seven Pencils for Guinness’ Sapeurs. Nadja will be a judge on the D&AD Professional Awards 2016 Outdoor Advertising Jury.

In the article below, they explore the past, present and future of Out Of Home Advertising. Whether it’s digital billboards, branded experiences or traditional posters, OOH Advertising is here to stay. What’s more, they argue, it will outlast other forms of media which are currently under threat.

‘Out of Home’ often feels like both advertising’s past and its future.

You can’t accuse outdoor of being reluctant to change. A quick look at the OOH award categories gives you a clue. There’s ambient, ambient digital screens, interactive outdoor experiences, live events, non-formatted digital outdoor, special builds. The list goes on.

Buskers have been used to release albums. Billboards have been turned into benches. Pepsi turned Uber Taxis into Back to the Future Deloreans. And the incredibly poignant New York Gun Store campaign was a pop-up store.

A recent piece I loved was BA’s brilliant ‘Magic of Flying’ billboard. The idea is like a roll-call of adland’s favourite buzzwords: real-time data, interactivity, some digital, and lots of collaboration. And it all comes together in a beautifully evocative ode to our childlike wonder for flight. It’s the kind of idea you just know is routinely invoked by CDs in every creative department, “give me some of that.”

They’re the kind of ideas creatives love to make.

But the gift of new technology can also be a curse; we all know about adblockers. Here again, outdoor looks like the future.

Another one of my favourite pieces from last year (I’m not really going out on a limb here) was the ‘Nazis Against Nazis’ rally. A simple stunt, this piece of outdoor transcended its medium, slipped past the adblockers and found it’s way into the news and popular culture. Just like Security Moms did. Just like Gaytms. And just like the Marathon Walker for Water for Africa. It’s just a woman entered into a race carrying a bucket of water and a message that this is how far women walk for water. So Simple.

It’s all quite meta. Is it the event that counts? Or is it the after image that counts, as the idea travels around the internet landing up on blogs, Facebook feeds and news sites?

And then there’s advertising’s past. The intrusive, inflexibile and mute billboards. They feel like throwbacks to the old way of doing things. A flat image with an unyielding rule that the consumer can take in no more than eight words (unless they’re Economist readers). How boring. How old school. Until you remember 2015's ‘Shot on iPhone 6’ campaign. Simple, traditional and utterly un-missable pieces of art in the urban landscape.

It proves our past can be our friend too.

There is a piece of research that has always stayed with me. In focus groups people will remember seeing a brand’s new television ad, even though no such ad has been on air. It turns out that what people are recalling is the billboards they pass each and every day. People don’t forget billboards. Although they sometimes mislable them.

They might not be shiny, they might not be new, but billboards are real workhorses. We shouldn’t dismiss them. The other good thing about billboards is you can’t adblock the view.

I’m really looking forward to seeing all the new work that will come through this year. I hope there’s room for both the future and the past.