When Google was launching at Japan, we did a lot of campaigns.
This is the most memorable one. We did an event called “Fly over the sky in Shibuya with Google“. The structure was simple, 1 search = 1 balloon". We made a bunch of balloons with peoples search from our campaign site and people can fly with the balloons at central Shibuya. But It’s not just fun, when people search, they learn search tips too.
Balloons are broken in just few hours (I didn’t know it!), we need to keep adding new one. We planed the color is changing like this.
Google Election Campaign
Voter turnout of Japan is quite low especially young people. Because things politicians are talking is unbelievable (or politicians just care old people who vote.. anyway). We made a system people can ask their true intention with Google tools.
At the website, people can post questions for candidate of politicians. Then people vote and pick 5 questions. The candidates answer for the questions via YouTube. And we made a page that gathers every candidates’ answering videos. That page shows a route of people’s polling place too.
Where is Obama city?
This is so simple but I still like it. Our mission is educating people about the driving direction function in 2008 when people don’t used to use the Google Map yet.
2008 is a historical year because Obama became the president of the United States of America.
On the other hand, there is a city called Obama in Japan that’s a just coincident. But people who live in Obama city are so excited and that became a funny news in Japan.
We just use the chance. The banner says “Search the fastest way to Obama city from your city with Google“. Because many people know the name of Obama city with the news but no one know where is it. When people click the banner, Google map open and the Obama city is already typed in to the destination. People just need type in their city name to the departure and they will get how to use the driving direction with fun way.
