“I DON ’T MAKE ADS, I MAKE DEMOS AND DOCUMENTARIES "
Robert Wong, the livewire creative head of Google Creative Lab almost became an accountant before being claimed by the world of design and advertising. He landed his current assignment after stints as VP of creative at Starbucks and most recently creative director at ad agency Arnold Worldwide. Among the things he's worked on at Google include the interactive Les Paul guitar doodle that he claims generated "40 million songs and eliminated 5.4 million hours of productivity." He has conceived of emotionally charged online campaigns for Google's Chrome browser and even a print ad that celebrated Desmond Tutu meeting the Dalai Lama on a Google+ Hangout. Wong was one of the most popular speakers at the recent Kyooriyus Designyatra, a seminar on various facets of design and communication. In his presentation, Wong said he would like the global marketing industry to use its $7 trillion budget to add something good to the world and believes what he creates are not ads but "demos and documentaries".
Excerpts from an interview:
Ravi Balakrishnan
When was it that you first realised the money spent on marketing could be harnessed for 'good'?
Back in college, I was watching Highlander a film about mediaeval warriors who time travel to modern day New York. They are lost and one character asks, 'How are we going to find the church?' The other replies 'That's easy. It's the tallest building.' And I thought of course the church is not the tallest building anymore!
Commerce has so much influence on culture, more than religion or anything else. How is business shaping culture, what doctrines does it have, what values does it preach? I work for that industry and am part of the megaphone. And so I believe it is important to say good things. It doesn't matter what you are selling. The ‘real beauty’ campaign from Dove sold soap but they used empowering young women (in the ads). It doesn't have to always be 'change the world for the good.' It could be tiny things that remind you of your anniversary or maybe something that makes you laugh. The ability to inspire people to be better human beings is pretty big.
How has the experience been at Google?
At its core I love and use the products. What it's done for society is amazing. It's very much a founder driven company. (Google founders) Larry Page and Sergey Brin are PhD students who want to solve the world's biggest problems and hire other people with a similar need. It's a pure meritocracy where it's not the person with the biggest title that gets a say. Kids right out of school can be as vocal as anyone else. Googlers ask very challenging questions. If they don't like something they will speak about it publicly and won't get fired. People coming in don't just meet a hiring manager but a team. If you are in marketing you could be
interviewed by
an engineer. The
quality of screening is very, very
high. We look for the
intangible part of 'are
they a Googley person?'
How would you define such a
person?
People who are audacious and have a healthy disregard for the impossible. People who really want to change the world on a large scale.
Is this true of Google Creative Lab as well? How big is your team?
We have 50 people based out of New York. All of them tick these boxes. I'm not saying it works all the time but the key is intent. The second part is the DNA of Larry and Sergey as human beings. It calls for stories as a big deal. Everyone's constantly telling stories of what 'Googley' is so you can observe behaviour and model it.
Which projects does Google Creative Lab get involved in? And considering Google also works with ad agencies, are there any turf wars?
We will not be big or do every bit of work. That's why it's Creative Lab and not 'agency' or 'brand group.' We are going to do things that can scale and which we consider universal. The creatives that join know part of their job is to work with other agencies. It is fun because you are not limited and can work with the best people in any sphere.
How did you come to view your work as "demos and documentaries"?
At Google, we firmly believed that the product is the marketing and so didn't do a lot of marketing for a long time. Even now, we find what is true of the product, what people are using it for and let them speak for us. We then said we are going to do demos in a way that's really cool. When you discover a new feature, you do show it around to friends. We just pumped that up to 11.
Usually 'demo' is used in a derogatory way to describe advertising that's too literal. Do you agree?
I never believed that. It helps when a product is so good, you don't have to throw layers of stuff on it. Many products and services are very commoditised and all you have is the brand and what it means.
How do you fight the temptation to overproduce your films?
One of the rules I apply is it must be true to the product. We do romance it a little bit. We take stuff off the pages on our ads so you can focus on what's relevant. But then we like it to be raw. When you have a sunset and a movie soundtrack in a commercial you have expectations. When you start off staring at the Google homepage you have none. It's easier to exceed people's expectations when you begin with the everyday very common act of writing an email.
Moving on to Google's products, the launch of Google+ was reckoned to be a disappointment. Is that the view internally as well? Do you think it is a problem that can be solved by communication? Or is it more intrinsic?
It is always a bit of both. People have to know it to try it and you need a compelling enough reason. It's actually not true that it hasn't met expectations, internally. It's a shame that people think of Google+ as a destination. It's a signed in version of Google. As it goes through search, maps and android, the integration is the ultimate value it will bring. Consider our new product Google Now: Someone told me Larry's idea of the perfect search engine is one that knows what you want before you want it. And I always thought it was a joke. But Google Now is doing just that. It knows where you are and what you searched for, takes your data and past behaviour and serves up options. Google Now can tell when you need to leave if you have a meeting in an hour, based on Google maps traffic layer. At the moment, Google is very query based. What it's not great at is anticipating. Imagine if your daily life — the whole of it — is made up of little moments of now.
Source ET - Brand Equity