Context synopsis
The Germans, in particular, had reservations about Google Street View, especially with the elder politicians and older generations opposing it very strongly. The CeBIT trade fair in Hannover, Germany, is Europe’s biggest technology trade fair and a great opportunity to have visibility and reach to all trade fair goers, technologists, politicians and the global press.
Project requirements
At short notice we needed to design and implement an experiential event, a trade fair stand and product branding, to represent Street View at CeBIT in a fun and engaging way, and to reduce the ‘big brother’ image.
What we did
One of our initial concepts for the European livery was the ‘Art Car’, whereby at each new location a car visited, it would be painted/repainted by someone local, be this school children or local artists. While it became apparent that this wasn’t practical at this scale, everyone liked the idea, so it became the central element of our trade-fair solution.
We designed and implemented a simple, well-lit stand, with a neutral backdrop and a minimal amount of Google branded elements and Art Car branding, to house three Street View cars.
On the first day of the trade fair, six local art students, in Art Car branded boiler suits and with Art Car painting kits, proceeded to decorate the cars, with a slightly bemused public as an audience.
The result was a furore of interest and curiosity – many TV and radio interviews drove the PR value of this project through the roof. It featured on the national news, in national papers and was heavily blogged.
Over the remaining days of the fair, passers-by could take pictures of the car, touch the car and get a demonstration of the product.
We also produced a short film, documenting the decoration process and the audience reaction.
Results
PR coverage: Bild.de (6.3m uu), Focus Online (3.8m uu), Welt.de (3.3m uu) and Heise Online (2.5m uu), FAZ.net (1.7m uu). Several TV interviews such as ZDF Heute Journal (8.7m viewers). Also Google News / Archive (English language).
