2019 Winners & Shortlists

GOOGLE SEARCH

BrandGOOGLE
Product/ServiceSEARCH ENGINE
EntrantIMPACT BBDO Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
CategoryMedia & Publications
Idea Creation IMPACT BBDO Dubai, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Production GOOD PEOPLE FILMS Cairo, EGYPT
Production 2 GOOD PEOPLE Beirut, LEBANON
Additional Company IMPACT BBDO Cairo, EGYPT

Background.

Situation: Since 2012, Egypt and Saudi Arabia saw a tremendous boom in social media. People saw the power of being connected online could do, and as collectivist as the society is, they took their social setting to the virtual world. The problem is they took their habits with them as well, asking friends when they are looking for information, rather opt in to Google search. Brief: Our task was to get people when looking for information to move from asking their friends, to ask Google Objectives: Increase traffic and frequency on Google search

Describe the creative idea.

In Egypt, and the Arab world, people to tend to answer questions, even if they don’t know the answer to them, since people would do anything than seem ignorant. We created a character, Waterpolo Coach Aref (common name that literally means ‘knowledgeable’), he thinks he knows everything about sports. When people ask him questions and he responds with the wrong answer, we start seeing the right answer on Google to show the difference. If you want to know anything about Football, Ask Google

Describe the strategy.

We have preformed several focus groups in Egypt & Saudi Arabia, gathering qualitative and quantitative data which was our starting point for the strategy and insight. Our audience were 18-35, the youth of Egypt and Saudi Arabia that were infamous for their online usage and love for humorous content. Research suggested that when they want real information they’d go to Google, but old habits die hard, they still automatically went to their friends rather than heading to Google. Accordingly, we created our character, Coach Aref, to show that when you ask people, they will give you an answer. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the right one.

Describe the execution.

In 2 months’ time we have developed series of films each film tackling a different football question, which we knew from our research data consumers are interested in knowing the answers of those questions. We created a hero character which thinks he knows it all while the truth is he can never give a precise answer as Google search engine. The series of films were placed in several touch-points starting from TV up to social media platforms. The campaign ran for almost 4 months and have acquired a tremendous shift in traffic and frequency.

List the results.

The Google Sports Search Campaign aimed to introduce the new experience for Google Search for football related information (Match times, scores, standings, Player info ..etc), helping users get this information directly from the search result page faster and more accurately than ever. This was particularly relevant with the world cup and the local leagues starting in Egypt and Saudi. The campaign reached 79% of the total target audience across all mediums and channels, generating positive sentiment in both countries with users sharing the different campaign creatives across social platforms +100k times including sharing many other ways of how Google helps users daily. The campaign delivered on the business goals and increased users unaided awareness for the feature by 22pp.

Credits

Name Company Role
Dani Richa Impact BBDO Chief Executive Officer
Paul Shearer Impact BBDO Dubai Chief Creative Officer
Hussam Moro Impact BBDO Cairo Chief Creative Officer
Jad El Rabahi Impact BBDO Dubai Regional Account Director
Amira Abdelnabi Impact BBDO Dubai Account Director
Mostafa Hashish Impact BBDO Dubai Senior Strategist
Mohamed Fathy Good People Director
Khaled Zaki Good People Producer
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