Title	GOOGLE ESCAPE
Brand	GOOGLE FRANCE
Product/Service	GOOGLE
Category	B03. Use of Outdoor
Entrant	WE ARE SOCIAL Paris, FRANCE
Idea Creation	WE ARE SOCIAL Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company	THE Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company 2	SUPERBIEN Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company 3	FRANCINE FRAMBOISE Paris, FRANCE
Additional Company 4	ONIRIM Paris, FRANCE

Name	Company	Position
Sandrine Plasseraud	We Are Social	Managing Director
Nicolas Souffleur	We Are Social	Group Account Director
Julien Ouvrel	We Are Social	Head of Production
Thomas Guilhot	We Are Social	Creative Director
Ludovic Houdré	We Are Social	Account Manager
Arnaud Robin	We Are Social	Senior Account Manager
Corentin Picaut	We Are Social	Account Manager
Fabien Gailleul	We Are Social	Art Director
Aurélie Durand	We Are Social	Copywriter
Stéphane Maguet	We Are Social	Head of Creative Technology
Clément Procureur	We Are Social	Creative Technologist
Baptiste Leproux	We Are Social	Creative Technologist
Stéphanie Huguenin	Francine Framboise	Executive Producer
Alexis Moroz	/	Game Desiner
Vincent Dizie	//	Set Design and Scenography
Benoit Lemoine	//	Live Director
Thomas Bohbot	//	Author
Stéphane Beghounious	//	Author
Jean Marie Nizan	//	Author
Cédric Brunel & Aude Lepetit	//	Line Producers (Event)
Edouard Bonnet	//	Line Producer (Content)
Guillaume Forest	//	Technical Director

The Campaign

The creative idea was to showcase the magic behind Google’s products, in real life and in a way that would be the coolest possible: by playing and experimenting in a beautifully crafted physical branded and digital/technological environment, right at the heart of Paris, where our audience lives - the first branded escape game: the Google Escape Room. A fun escape game full of technology where players had to solve riddles using Google Apps & Products such as Google Photos, Google Translate, Google Cardboard and many others in order to get out of the room within 40 minutes, via their mobile phone. As, yes, first and foremost, it was the first escape game where your smartphone was essential!

Creative Execution

The Google Escape Room was an interactive experiential and ephemeral installation which took place from the 20th to the 29th of May in Central Paris. To create the game we brought together creatives, game designers and set designers who designed the gameplay with the whole range of Google’s Apps : Google Search: Players could use the app to find information such as a movie's release date/ Google Cultural Institute: players had to find a clue by literally diving into the painting thanks to a Kinect system/ Google Hangout: some clues were given to the players through the app/ Google Play Music: Players had to reproduce a melody they were listening to/ Google Cardboard: players had to explore a 360° landscape with a Cardboard to find hidden symbols/ Google Maps: by solving some riddles, an immersive 270° street view mapping appeared on the wall.

This ephemeral campaign was an innovative test & learn aimed at getting people to engage with products in real life and in a way that would be the coolest possible; by playing and experimenting. The campaign attracted a great amount of coverage, generated millions of impressions (17 millions impressions, 1,8 millions engagement, 270 000 mentions of the hashtag) but most of all, people loved it and we gave everyone reasons to engage with technology in a creative way, which was the initial objective. This test & learn was therefore so positive that we’re now in talks to recreate this escape rooms in many other countries, some could be ephemerals, others could be permanent fixture (for new Google employees to experience the Google Apps & Products in an innovative way for example)

Google Escape is an immersive and ephemeral brand experience that happened in Central Paris through the construction, from scratch, of a real life branded escape game. To create this temporary branded installation in the middle of Paris, we brought together creatives, game designers and set designers who designed the gameplay around the whole range of Google’s Apps & Products (Google Search, Google Cultural Institute, Google Hangout, Google Cardboard, etc) so that players had 40 minutes to solve riddles using their mobile phones and Google products to leave the room, over a 10-days period.

Insights, Strategy and the Idea

The objective was to engage urban and connected people to experiment Google Apps, to prove the usefulness of those in their daily life to channel their curiosity and creativity. Once we identified a rising trend among our audience for live escape games, we knew we were on to something. And because Google believe that learning through play is the most natural and fun way to their users’ hands and hearts, we decided to create the first branded escape game: the Google Escape Room. The big idea was to showcase the magic behind Google’s products, in real life and in a way that would be the coolest possible; by playing and experimenting with technology in a creative way.