Cheltenham Festival is underway but fans need to go no further than Piccadilly Circus to get a slice of this year’s event. To bring the horse racing to Central London, Coral has launched a new out-of-home campaign, ‘Your Horse’ with help of BBH. Making use of Piccadilly Circus’ famous billboards, the new campaign brings the thrill of the race to fans via DeepScreen activation at Ocean Outdoor’s iconic Piccadilly Lights, 100 miles away from Cheltenham.

The activation is a first for the bookmaking sector, with the large scale creative showcasing four horses and their jockeys jostling for a position in a race. Moments into the action, riders and horses dissolve away, leaving the viewer with one horse which then leaps out of the screen in slow-motion. 

"This piece is based on the simple insight that when you're watching a horse race, the only horse you're really seeing is the one you're backing. So our idea was to remove everything else on the racetrack except one single horse. And to do it in the most epic way possible using the DeepScreen.” explained Guy Hobbs, Associate Creative Director from BBH.

“Never before has horse racing been given this sort of treatment, and this show-stopping spectacle truly brings racing fans closer to the action. It's based on the premise that when it comes to racing, the only horse that matters is the one you’ve backed,” added Chris Brocklehurst, Coral’s Head of Brand Marketing.

Coral is the first-ever brand to fully utilise both the full opportunity of the DeepScreen experience using the eye-catching technology to bring the speed and motion of the racehorses to life. The head-turning visuals cause members of the public to stop and take videos for themselves.

“DeepScreen is all about scale.” explained Melanie Blood, senior project manager Ocean Labs, “The biggest screens create the best experiences and Ocean’s large format screens make these campaigns even more prominent. The epitome of them all is Landsec’s iconic Piccadilly Lights. With its curved screen, it’s the ultimate for all 3D experiences.”

The 3D spectacle debuted at Piccadilly Circus on the morning of Cheltenham Festival and will appear on rotation once an hour for the week of the festival.

A media campaign, planned and executed by the7stars, includes an OOH takeover of Cheltenham Spa station, social media, digital audio, digital and print activity. Racing fans across the country will also be able to view the creative from Coral’s campaign at several further Ocean locations across the UK, including Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham and Southampton.

“This activation is the result of putting creativity at the heart of the planning process and is testament to Coral’s ambitious approach to brand growth. This is a truly exciting campaign and an unmissable tribute to horse racing in the week of Cheltenham Festival.” added Lewis Watson, Client Lead from the7stars.