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Advertising Week Europe returned to 180 Studios in London this week for its annual gathering of the marketing, media, creative and tech industries - and if one theme ran like a thread through the three-day event, it was this: in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape, showing up in the real world has never been more powerful.
Nowhere was that argument made more compellingly than in the session O2 Unmissable: How Virgin Media O2 Owns the Real World, a high-energy conversation that brought together some of the sharpest minds in Out of Home to unpack one of the UK's most recognisable brand presences. The panel featured Richard Bown, Head of Advertising Campaign sat Virgin Media O2; Tamara Cross, Chief Creative Officer at MG OMD; BenGardiner, Chief Client Officer at Grand Visual; and Dilki Weerakoon, Head ofClient Strategy at Talon. Together, they laid out a masterclass in always-on brand building, creative bravery, and the evolving art of measurement.
Always on, always relevant
At the heart of the discussion was Virgin Media O2's philosophy of sustained brand presence - not campaign bursts, but a year-round approach that keeps the brand visible and culturally connected. Richard Bown was candid about the challenge. As a telecoms brand, Virgin Media O2 faces what he described as the invisibility of its own product. The answer, he explained, is to build deep consumer connections outside the purchase journey entirely - tapping into moments and environments where people are already paying attention. That ambition has produced some genuinely creative work. Bown cited the moment the brand repositioned itself as rugby's biggest fan around the Rugby World Cup - using its owned estate and cultural proximity to the sport to build genuine resonance. And then there was the Drake moment: capitalising on the rapper's UK tour by swapping just one letter on signage to change O2 to O3, a piece of reactive wit that cost under £10,000 and generated over two million social impressions. It was the kind of creative agility that Bown said defines his team's approach. "OOH is quite liberating for creativity," he noted. "It's flexible and we can try something once and test it."
Designing for the real world - and beyond it
Dilki Weerakoon brought a wider strategic lens to the conversation, exploring how Out of Home's reach now extends far beyond the physical formats themselves. "No one channel works in isolation," she said - a line that resonated throughout the room. In today's media environment, a well-executed OOH moment can unlock audiences online, becoming cultural currency in a way that amplifies its impact many times over. Weerakoon also championed the power of long-term planning and the importance of designing for genuine engagement - asking not just how an ad looks, but why a consumer should care. It was a point Ben Gardiner built on eloquently. Having conversations with clients about audience motivation, he said, is central to Grand Visual's work: "The cutting room floor has ideas that would make great case studies. But the biggest opportunity is pushing yourself outside of your own brand thinking - putting yourself in the consumer's shoes and asking why it resonates." Gardiner also challenged the industry to move away from thinking about format first. His advice to the room was simple: "Don't think format first - OOH is a modern canvas and a playground for creativity. Establish the 'why' and don't limit yourself." He even introduced the audience to a new term for the blending of physical and digital brand experiences - "phygital" (pronounced, he was keen to clarify, as"figital") - raising a laugh in the process.
Measurement: a discipline, not an afterthought
The panel also gave significant time to the question of effectiveness. Tamara Cross, who oversees creative strategy for some of MG OMD's largest clients including Virgin Media O2, John Lewis and Waitrose, was direct: holistic measurement across channels remains genuinely difficult because nothing is measured the same way. Her advice was to be clear-eyed about what each element of a campaign is specifically there to achieve - and measure that. "Think big," she told the audience. "OOH is such a flexible medium- look up, look down, look around you." Richard Bown added that quality data changes the risk profile for brands of every size. For those without large measurement teams, he said, good third-party data means you can take a more confident approach to OOH investment. And for smaller brands exploring the medium for the first time, that's a significant reassurance.
An industry in confident form
Taken together, the session painted a picture of an outdoor industry that is increasingly sophisticated, data-informed and creatively ambitious - one where the best work doesn't stay within the billboard frame but spills into culture, social feeds and consumer memory. The room left with Dilki Weerakoon's closing thought ringing in their ears: a reminder of the power of long-term planning, the relationship between creative and media, and above all, the enduring importance of showing up in the real world.
