Giving_Google_a_voice_at_the_2014_World_Cup_Making_realtime_search_data_colle

Giving Google a voice at the 2014 World Cup: Making real-time search data collectable

Lachlan Williams

Warc Prize for Social Strategy

Entrant, 2015

Giving Google a voice at the 2014 World Cup: Making real-time search data collectable

Lachlan Williams

Campaign details

Brand owner: Google

Lead agency: R/GA LondonFleishman Hillard

Contributing agency: Craft Translation

Brand: Google Trends

Country: Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, American Samoa, Andorra, Angola, Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina,

Armenia, Aruba, Ascension Island, Australia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bahamas, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belarus, Belgium,

Belize, Benin, Bermuda, Bhutan, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Bouvet Island, Brazil, British Indian Ocean

Territory, Brunei Darussalam, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cap Verde, Cayman Islands,

Central African Republic, Chad, Chile, China, Christmas Island, Cocos (Keeling) Islands, Colombia, Comoros, Congo,

Republic of, Congo, The Democratic Republic of the, Cook Islands, Costa Rica, Cote d'Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech

Republic, Denmark, Djibouti, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Estonia,

Ethiopia, Europe (EU), Falkland Islands (Malvinas), Faroe Islands, Federal State of Micronesia, Fiji, Finland, France, French

Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Gambia, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Gibraltar, Greece, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe,

Guam, Guatemala, Guernsey, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Heard and McDonald Islands, Holy See (Vatican City

State), Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Isle of Man, Israel, Italy, Jamaica, Japan,

Jersey, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kiribati, Korea, Democratic People's Republic, Korea, Republic of , Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan,

Lao People's Democratic Republic, Latvia, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, Liechtenstein, Lithuania,

Luxembourg, Macau, Macedonia, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Marshall Islands, Martinique,

Mauritania, Mauritius, Mayotte, Mexico, Mexico, Moldova, Republic of, Monaco, Mongolia, Montenegro, Montserrat, Morocco,

Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nauru, Nepal, Netherlands, Netherlands Antilles, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Nicaragua,

Niger, Nigeria, Niue, Norfolk Island, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Palestinian Territories, Pan

Arab, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Peru, Philippines, Pitcairn Island, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Qatar,

Reunion Island, Romania, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Pierre and

Miquelon, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, San Marino, Sao Tome and Principe, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Serbia, Seychelles,

Sierra Leone, Singapore, Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Africa, South Georgia and the South

Sandwich Islands, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Suriname, Svalbard and Jan Mayen Islands, Swaziland, Sweden, Switzerland,

Title: Giving Google a voice at the 2014 World Cup: Making real-time search data collectable

Author(s): Lachlan Williams

Source: Warc Prize for Social Strategy

Issue: Entrant, 2015

Downloaded from warc.com

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Syrian Arab Republic, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Trinidad and Tobago,

Tunisia, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Turks and Caicos Islands, Tuvalu, Uganda, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom,

United States, Uruguay, US Minor Outlying Islands, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Vietnam, Virgin Islands, British, Virgin

Islands, US, Wallis and Futuna Islands, Western Sahara, Western Samoa, Yemen, Yugoslavia, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Industry: Websites, online services, apps

Channels used: Content marketing, Earned media, buzz, Internet - microsites, Public relations, Social media, Word of mouth,

advocacy

Media budget: 500k - 1 million

Executive summary

This case study describes how Google connected with the public by utilizing its unique data resources to capture stories

amongst the continuously shifting noise around the World Cup.

Google wanted to connect with people's passions around the 2014 World Cup but the event would be saturated with

marketing, so Google's contribution needed to be unique and valued.

By tapping into Google's rich pool of search data, R/GA London identified that the way people searched during big events

offered a fascinating glimpse into what the world was thinking, so together they designed and built a process that took real-

time search data, crafted it into shareable content called 'Trends' and pitched it to the world.

By the end of the tournament, these Trends had travelled across the world, in over 50 different languages, attracting coverage

from some of the most influential media houses and the biggest names in football: with zero media spend the project delivered

over 3.4 billion impressions, worth around US$16.5 million.

Market background and cultural context

Now, more than ever, Google needs to reconnect with its audiences emotionally as people begin to take its technology and

services for granted. Most people's relationship with the brand is very functional, so Google is always looking for ways to grow

emotional connections with the public, specifically by attaching greater meaning and emotional value to their powerful utilities,

like search.

While Google is a clear market leader in search (65.4%), during a tournament like the World Cup, brands like Nike, Adidas,

Coca-Cola and McDonald's invest an incredible amount of money vying to be the most recognized brand. (Brands spent over

US$5.7 billion.) We had a task on our hands to even be heard.

We set out to find a unique and compelling role for Google to play in popular culture during the tournament. Cutting through

the clutter of the event and making our contribution unquestionably Google meant we needed to leverage their existing assets.

Google has a steady flow of social content published through its various handles, so we had some performance benchmarks.

We also wanted to move sentiment scores. Ultimately, success would be measured by the impact of the campaign on popular

culture (measured specifically by how much traction the content received in the media and with influencers, ie shares, likes,

retweets, comments etc).

Insight and strategic thinking


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Search data as a new storytelling tool

Search data offered a completely new type of information. The searches made around the world gave us a raw and honest

view of people. Our idea was to turn this massive pool of cold hard data into warm shareable human stories. We were going to

offer a complementary narrative to the world's biggest sport event.

Many brands use social sentiment as a measure of popular culture. We felt that social media, as a true measurement of

people, is flawed. People curate what they post based on how they think it will be received. It is not a measure of what people

are thinking; it is more a measure of what they are prepared to say publicly. If you want to know what people are really

thinking, look at what they are searching for: their burning questions, their knowledge gaps, the things that particularly interest

them. During big events, the things people search for reveal a lot about them.

We knew that somewhere in the world's searches would be signs of what people were thinking during the tournament. With

the right tools and people, we could reveal them and craft them into insightful snapshots. Search could offer us a new context

to view the tournament appealing to both football fans and casual fans alike. It allowed us to look at the World Cup through the

popular-culture lens, not just the football lens. More than that, we could give a truly global view of the World Cup by looking at

searches in all languages, looking at how different nations responded to the competition as it happened.

Working with Google engineers, we developed tools that would allow us to mine the data and started building a team and

workflow that would allow us to craft this data into insights and then ultimately compelling, shareable stories.

Identifying the cultural hotspots for content

We developed a framework to help focus our content, identifying topical themes by looking at what was newsworthy, culturally

interesting and present in search. We would use this framework on a daily basis to identify the stories we should pursue.

Principles to guide content creation

We set some important guidelines for content to make sure it performed:

l Surprising (not the obvious story);

l Unique (something only Google could tell);


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l Collectable (spoke to a moment of value);

l Shareable (had cultural currency);

l Colourful (in keeping with the tournament being all about national pride and colours).

To deliver this we needed a team with a wide set of skills: local-language writers, master copywriters, designers, data

analysts, social-media analysts, social-media pitch teams and more. We also needed a way of working that allowed us to

move quickly and potentially reactively.

Implementation, including creative and media development

The newsroom

In order to deliver live content quickly and efficiently, we relocated our whole R/GA London team to a space at R/GA's San

Francisco offices. There, we ran tests with Google data analysts and the Trends tools built specifically for the project.

We ran on-boarding sessions for the writers from the craft translation team, and worked with our partners at Fleishman Hillard

to set up the social engine that would drive the content distribution and measurement and provide real-time insights for the

writers and designers. Together we scrutinized and evolved the process with the Google team ready for the first game.

We developed a content matrix that we could use as a story-making guide. It used comparisons as the basic approach, giving

context to searches. For example, it allowed us to give weight to the searches for Ronaldo's new haircut by showing that

people were searching more for his locks than for his football tricks.

Channel approach

We had no media budget at all, so we built an intricate network of influencers using Google's own channels/handles across

the globe together with an outreach programme that identified key influencers and commentators in both social and media in

each of these markets.

While we were able to build an overarching structure, each piece of content was, in effect, a totally new brief. So the workflow

we designed and built allowed us to move quickly as soon as we had content. We designed and built our CMS using Google

Drive and Docs so that our global network could access the content in the same place we were creating it, reducing the


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distance from creation to publishing.

The team from Fleishman were tasked with pitching content to (and seeding ideas with) relevant influencers via 22 local

Google offices around the world, using the small window of opportunity around each fixture to pitch ideas in parallel with

content creation.

We focused, where possible, on having partners post our content for us and then retweeting/reposting. This would extend our

reach and start to show other influencers adopting our content. The flexible workflow we designed also allowed us to allocate

resources to any requests or opportunities that came into the newsroom. This proved to be essential as the competition got

underway.

In addition to the Trends that we were pitching, Google PR pitched the newsroom itself to local and national media. During our

time there we were interviewed and filmed by Wired, NPR and a range of local media. The newsroom itself became a story

and teams had to get used to cameras in their faces while mining data and crafting social content.

Process

We worked non-stop for the whole tournament, with days starting at 7:00 am and often finishing past 8:00 pm, 30 days

straight, 12–14 hours per day with no breaks. The level of concentration needed to keep this up required a watertight process

and a problem-solving process so we could be nimble and responsive when we needed to be.

Each game presented new stories and new challenges for pitching content. We effectively had a brief for every game, so our

process needed to be clear but flexible. The leadership team would meet before the day started to discuss any blockers in the

process and prioritize any new tasks. Then, the whole team would meet and share the day's tasks:

l Strategy would outline the games and content tasks attached to each.

l Translators/writers would give news updates based on local media.

l Fleishman would recap the previous day's results and outline any social trends directly relevant to the upcoming matches

so we knew what to look for.

l Planning would pair designers, writers and translators to specific fixtures.


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We built a suite of templates and workflows that would allow us to keep track of and manage the immense volume of work at

speed:

l Daily task board: Based on newsroom workflow written beforehand that detailed every single task for every single fixture.

l Translation workflow: Google Sheet that allowed writers to put in the master copy and then have it translated immediately

by our network of internal and external translators.

l Copy-approval matrix: Google Sheet that facilitated real-time client approvals, social pitching, requests and proactive

tasks. This document formed the heart of the project with well over 200 contributors.

l Data spreadsheets: Google Sheets that allowed data analysts and writers to quickly sort through millions of lines of data

to find the interesting points. There was at least one of these per game.

l Master Photoshop template files: All our illustrations were based on modular-like shapes. So our designers shared the

basic shapes as they built them up over the tournament and used them to speed up the creation of assets.

To manage the volume and pace of work, we kept to a strict process in the newsroom that went something like:

l The teams were briefed first thing in the morning on the day's tasks.

l The teams were allocated to games (writers, data analysts, designers and translators).

l The data analysts queried tools with a broad run.

l The writers and translators went through and highlighted topics/themes that had social and media traction.

l The writers and designers developed the website assets before the main games started.

l The data analysts and writers dug deeper into the data to find a surprising angle/story.

l The designer started to develop illustrations of the story options.

l The team agreed on the best story and then drafted the copy and design.

l The leadership team and Fleishman assessed any ad hoc requests coming in and allocated the work to teams.

l Social were informed of the story and started identifying potential pitching opportunities, connecting with local market

satellites to establish interest.

l The final copy was shared with the craft translation team and the Google Sheet was populated by the main writers and

external translators for key languages.

l The final asset was approved by the client team.

l Multiple copies of the asset were made in each key language and shared with local teams on Google Drive.

l The Fleishman team ensured the pitching process was in full swing.

l The assets were uploaded to the website.

l The assets were printed and put up on the wall, where results would be added the next morning to measure effectiveness

and allow the team to learn and adapt on the fly.

This process allowed us to process an enormous amount of work and do it quickly so that content was hitting relevant

communities at the right time, contributing to the discussions around the games and tournament as a whole.


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Content

Each story was a collectable window into the things that were interesting people around each fixture. A combination of

beautiful illustrations and sharp and delightful copy gave these assets great value for people discussing the games and the

tournament. The information was typically something only Google could share, meaning that as the tournament unfolded more

and more people were looking to Google's insights as another resource through which they were enjoying and celebrating the

competition.

Social effects

Within days of launching, our Trends were in the media and getting posts on some of the biggest brands' and influencers'

handles. Four days after we started, we started getting requests for content from big players like Messi, Ozil and Marco Reus.

Brands like Adidas, Game of Thrones and US Soccer were among those to contact us for stories. The local teams saw

incredible success getting coverage on TV in most countries (including ESPN, the BBC, ABC and major networks in India,

Mexico and Australia).

By the end of the campaign, our Trends had become a big part of the conversation around the tournament, making Google an

unofficial, but important, part of the World Cup.

Key results

l 3.4 billion impressions (2.24 billion in social, 1.16 billion in global media);

l 55,000 #GoogleTrends mentions;

l Google's Twitter and Google+ handles among the top five brand social channels for interactions (the only other two in

this list being Coca-Cola and Adidas, both major sponsors who spent millions of dollars on sponsorships and above-the-

line communications);

l Four times more retweets per post than the average Google post;

l 94 global influencers;

l 1,000 pieces of media coverage.


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Key media coverage

Key social influencers

Business effects

The World Cup campaign was a test of what search data could be. Since then, Google has changed the way it looks at

Trends and has been rolling out similar content strategies across a number of new projects. In many cases the visual and tone

approaches we developed have been adopted by the teams carrying the Trends torch on.

Key business-results summary

l Across the board sentiment increased on 'positive opinion about Google' (64%, an increase of five points from where it

was before the tournament).

l The campaign established a long-term strategy for Google Trends.

l It introduced a new type of information to be used in media and conversations around key events.

Lessons learned

Our use of search data for this campaign makes it somewhat unique. However, there are certainly some key pieces of learning

for other marketers who want to establish a position for their brand in popular culture:

l Establish a clear and compelling role you can play that is unique and valuable. Understand culture and build a model that

allows your brand to identify its role.

l Genuine collaboration is critical in making live content (or any content really). Empower your agency partners to work

together as one central unified team.

l The strategic function on this project held it all together, all the way from the opportunity to concept, design, workflows,

structure, process, social outreach and content creation. It was a great example of the modern role strategy can play in


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communications.

l When creating live content, have as few hands handling the work as possible. Streamline wherever you can.

l Be prepared to throw your process out of the window and start again as you respond to new demands.

l Know what success will look like, be realistic and make sure you are measuring the right things (not just measuring what

you are able to measure).

l Make sure you capture your learning as you go so you can apply it immediately, but also collate it afterwards to inform

the way you approach the next challenge.

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