April Event Recap: Reimagining the Future of Advertising with the Google Art, Copy & Code Team

Nobody knows what advertising is going to be in 5 years. After all, it’s impossible to predict the future. Vikram Tank with the Google Art, Copy & Code team, however, knows how to use trending data to try and solve what will happen in the next 3-6 months. We were fortunate enough at this month’s event to get insight into what the folks at the Google Art, Copy & Code team have already accomplished in changing the advertising game, and what we can continue to see in the months (and maybe even years) ahead.

To kick the event off, Tank took us back to the good ol’ days when the ad world was a world of media scarcity. Now, it’s a world of media abundance. Screen time has increased by 500%, but humans’ ability to view media hasn’t. How do you differentiate yourself and reach your audience in a world of media abundance when every other company is trying to accomplish the same goal?

Turns out people don’t have as much clutter as we think. Tank taught us that we as humans have begun to thrive in this media abundance. We’ve developed better filters, and when we engage with content, we go really deep. And that’s the trick us marketers and advertisers need to solve – to be able to provide the content and tools for our customers to go deep with us.

The three basic principles the Google Art, Copy & Code team uses to have deep engagements are:

1.  Learn behavior

You need to know your customers inside and out to learn their behaviors. Once you know your customers at this level, you’ll discover what drives them to engage with content and what stories are most meaningful to them.

2.  Find your moment

Timing is everything. You could have the best story, but if you don’t present it to your audience at the right time, then it’s irrelevant. To find your moment, think about finding the right combination of place, text, and time. You have a very short time to capture users during an ad, even as short as 15 minutes. Know when your moment has arrived and take advantage of it.

3.  Be simple, but deep

Your fans are hungry for engagement. Tell your story as simply as possible and provide the right tools for your audience to engage with it. If you know who your audience is and their behaviors, you’ll know which tools will propel engagement.

So what are these “deep” engagements? We got to see three examples of Google’s work firsthand.

1) Their campaign with EA Sports’ Madden game, which generated real-time GIFs based on what was happening in live football games.

2) Their work with Lionsgate to propel the Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 movie, which tapped the power of YouTube celebrities to create genuine messages to teenage fans. Watch all 6 episodes here.

3) Their interactive Bullseye’s Playground game for Target holiday shoppers.

All three of these campaigns (and likely all of Google’s deep engagements) have this philosophy in common:  past, present, and predictable future data is the backbone to good planning. And good planning is what drives these campaigns to success.

If you missed the event, you can catch the Twitter conversation at #mimatweet, watch the recorded version here,  or check out the work from Google’s Art, Copy & Code team at artcopycode.com.