It may be hard to imagine now, but when Google first entered Japan in the late 2000s, they were the second-largest search engine, behind Yahoo Japan. Our mission was to make Google the number one search engine in Japan, and we carried out various campaigns to achieve that.
One of the most memorable projects for me was the campaign called “Fly over the sky in Shibuya with Google.” We created a special website where people could learn search tips using Google, and with each search made through the site, a balloon was generated. The idea was that eventually, people would accumulate enough balloons to float through the sky.
Imagine this: we utilized the empty lot next to the Tower Records in Shibuya, the heart of Tokyo at the time, and inflated over 100,000 balloons to lift people into the air. Participants wore harnesses and experienced floating in mid-air.
This campaign generated a lot of buzz and became a key moment that drew widespread attention to Google in Japan.
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.
