Update – People, Place, Planet.

Earlier this year, we announced a shift in strategy at OPEN, by centring all our activities around what is most important to us: People, Place & Planet.
These 3 pillars of focus have ran through every aspect of OPEN this year, influencing decision making at all levels of the business, so we wanted to provide a quick update to the steps we’ve taken since and how it’s affected us.

Our people are our most important asset here at OPEN, and we are going to be continuing to invest in them this year, with plans to expand the team both in Liverpool & London.

We aimed to recruit team members this year in order to match the expected growth in sites, and so far we’ve welcome 3 new staff members already, with a 4th to follow shortly.

Marvin, our Photography & Design Executive was brought in to help with our internal campaigns as well as capturing images for clients. Adam joined us next, as part of the Finance team based in Liverpool to assist Ant with all things financial. And finally, Chloe joined the London sales team as an Account Manager to focus on our relationships with agencies & specialists. We love to see our team grow, especially when it’s with such talented staff!

As well as expanding the team, we also committed to making being part of OPEN rewarding and enjoyable, by providing the best work environment possible. Below we’ve listed just some of the benefits we offer our team members, with the main additions being flexible working, wellness days and individual personal development budgets to encourage growth. We also kicked off our volunteering programme, by allowing team members to dedicate some of their time every quarter to causes close to their heart.

OPEN currently have sites across 11 major UK cities, but 2022 is the year we expand even further.

We’ve continued to expand our portfolio in the last 6 months, introducing new sites in Bristol, Liverpool & Newcastle – and we’re not done yet! Keep your eyes peeled for more exciting new sites that will be launching in Q3 & Q4.

In the last few months we’ve worked with some amazing charities, by donating hundreds of thousands worth of advertising space to help them spread their messaging up and down the country. We’re committed to using our platform for good, and that means giving as much free space as we possibly can to causes that otherwise would not be able to access OOH.

Our impact on the planet is something we take very seriously and continue to look at ways in which we can improve. We started on our commitment with our well-established corporate social responsibility campaigns, which have been running successfully for a number of years and are now well underway on our green journey.

Since launching our PPP pillars, one of the biggest changes we’ve made in the Planet section is a commitment to ‘powering down’ the OPEN Connect large format network nationwide. Since April this year, our Connect sites have been switched off between the hours of 12am-6am, in an effort help combat rising emissions.

A new development in our planet focus, is that we’re collaborating with the North-West Low Carbon Eco-Innovatory to conduct a life cycle assessment of digital screens in our portfolio, in order to determine if there are more environmentally friendly alternatives available and how best to extend the life cycle of these screens overall in order to prevent waste. This research project is an industry first and will be backed by academic research, in order to provide an insight in to the entire OOH industry.