Despite of Google’s dominance in global digital landscape, its presence in East Asian market is rather weak due the stronghold created by the local platforms and services such as Line, Kakao, Naver and Wechat. In Korea, most of Android users download mobile games from Google Play Store but the first contact point of the downloading process is usually Kakao Talk, the chatting app that dominates the local market. Hence users recognise Kakao as the game provider, not Google Play. Google wanted to correct this perception. The solution was to provide a ‘playground’ where people are immersed in the direct connection between games and Google Play while they have fun playing mobile games and participating in various game-related activities.
My role
My task as a Creative Design Director was to formulate comprehensive design solutions that covered all aspects of the campaign. The campaign was promoted through social media, display banner ads, OOH ads, POP and offline events, which lead to a month-long event where gaming experience, performances and character parades were offered. I made sure that all touch-points were communicated with one voice through consistent visual message. All designers and out-sourced venders operated under the guidelines created.
Personal challenge
The biggest challenge was to come up with one design solution for multiple stakeholders. When three Google offices (local, APAC and Global headquarter) from different cultural regions and business interests were involved, things were bound to get chaotic in decision making. Utilising my expertise as a visual communication specialist with deep cross-cultural insight, I managed to bring everyone onto the same page by providing visual communication solutions that all parties could collectively agree on from both cultural and hierarchical stand point. For example, the campaign identity went through numerous iterations and eventually it evolved into the optimum solution with the right dose of playfulness, sophistication, professionalism and minimalism with cross-regional appeal. The result was a campaign branding that was unique to the campaign and unmistakably Google at the same time.
