The company’s 1.6ha Cardiff manufacturing plant produced a variety of print to feature alongside the model dinosaurs, which it did not make, including a 26x6m banner, which is so big it is known as the 'Waterloo Sail’; 5,000 297x420mm posters; a double-sided 12x5m banner at the entrance to Waterloo Underground station; and 32 double-sided 5x1m pennants on the platforms. All the print was produced on Durst and HP presses, as part of what client JCDecaux called a “world-first out-of-home campaign”.
Wide-format banners and floor media were mixed with digital screens for the campaign and vinyl wraps framed Motion@Waterloo, the UK’s largest indoor digital advertising screen, expanding the 40x3m screen into a 53.5x3.5m multimedia display. The screen displayed Jurassic World trailer footage and a Twitter feed showing tweets that include the hashtag #JurassicWaterloo.
The campaign, planned and booked by MediaCom and Kinetic, was a multi-agency production, with Gardners supplying manufactured products. Gardners had been working on the project for the past 10 months as part of a long-standing relationship with JCDecaux.
Gardners director James Morris said: “We’ve been heavily involved in experimential work; it’s been a growth area for us. Out-of-home is moving away from this area of being roadside billboards.
“I’d say it’s been the most successful at mobilising everybody. It’s the best campaign we’ve delivered and it met the brief perfectly.”
Morris said it was rare for the company to talk about work on such campaigns but JCDecaux had “recorded great press from the events and they said it’s only right we do too”. It is, however, a growing part of its business.
“Our work is moving from a traditional signmaker offer to a more digital offer and it leads us away from ink on substrate – we’ve got so much more to offer,” Morris said.
“The management of production and print forms a new element, you never know what the brief will be. It could be a giant puzzle one minute and an A5 flyer then next."
The £12m-turnover business has 100 staff split between Cardiff and a sales office in Covent Garden, London, working in the retail, outdoor and event sectors.
Jurassic World, the latest in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park series from Universal Pictures and Amblin Entertainment, was released on 11 June.
Director of futures and content at JCDecaux, Stacey Knight said: “Jurassic World is creatively utilising every asset in the station to deliver the UK’s most unique and memorable outdoor advertising campaign to date. It is a true showcase of the spectacular power of out-of-home and the global media firsts add that element of surprise, making the campaign extra special.”
