Google played host to 250 of Australia's finest creative minds from across Australia last night, at the first Google Creative Sandbox to be held outside the US. In a meeting of the minds, the Creative, Media, and Technology communities shared ideas and possibilities. Australian creative agencies got to touch, feel and play with Google technology, experiments from the Google Creative Lab, and the best examples of creative campaigns from Australia and around the world.
Google's New York-based Robert Wong called on the creative community to explore and play: "This is a very special time, the web is ready, audiences are primed and creatives have this huge opportunity to do something big that's never been done before. The time is now. The best thing you can do tonight is to make friends with a geek!"
Google's Head of Agency Relations Guy Gibbs comments: "We're absolutely thrilled to have 250 of the country's most creative talent in the room tonight. It's taken a couple of years of listening, learning and collaboration for Google to develop its agency understanding and Australia has been at the forefront of that. The campaigns being developed here speak for themselves and we can't wait to see what creativity will make with the power of the web."
Managing Partner of Digital at Leo Burnett, Dominique Hind, showcased Earth Hour’s Vote Earth campaign, built on a new social mapping platform called "Show Your Vote", which uses Google's Geo and Social applications, and asks people to show their Vote for Earth in the lead up to the UN Climate Summit in Copenhagen this December.
Google Australia's very own Lars Rasmussen (creator of Google Wave) and Stephanie Hannon performed a playful Wave demonstration. And Aaron Koblin, Technology Lead for Google Creative Lab, wowed the crowd with his data visualisations such as Radiohead House of Cards.
Google Technology on display included:
- Chrome Experiments: developed out of Google's Creative Lab and demonstrating the awesome possibilities of the browser, using Javascript, without plugins.
- YouTube campaigns and products: including the current worldwide online dance competition from the Sydney Opera House MyMutation Opera House, beautiful Japanese Aquarium mosaic created by Asahi Advertising Inc, and novel video browsing from Warp Player.
- Insights for Search: free tools used by agencies and advertisers to provide deep insights into campaign success and consumer behaviour online.
- Social: demonstrated the recently launched social version of iGoogle and examples of how any website can awaken and strengthen the community on their site through Google Friend Connect.
- Google Wave:
- Geo: examples showing how Google Maps and Google Earth APIs can be used to create a more engaging user experience, ranging from a Coles store locator to Nike running routes and a Beastie Boys driving game, as well as the showstopper Wii Fit balance board used to navigate a virtual milktruck through Google Earth.
- Mobile applications demonstrating the eyes, ears, skin and location of a phone
- Google Content Network highighly-targeted performance display campaigns and the Google Ad Planner, a free tool to help media planners find where their audiences are browsing.
