Google World Cup 2014 | R/GA
Google wanted relevance in conversations surrounding the 2014 World Cup. We used search data to offer a fun and unique glimpse into what the world wanted to know during the tournament. These ‘Trends’ came in the form of a website focusing on the national search trends of competing nations, highlighting which team was more popular, which players were trending, the mood of each nation and the questions they were asking. Plus, bite-sized, sharable stories filled the homepage of the site and Google’s social feeds. These were the heroes of the project and designed to embed Google in the various World Cup debates online and in pubs worldwide.
We created all of this content in real-time, before, during, and after matches. A team of writers, designers, data analysts, translators and more watched and worked through every single match to turn data into content. Google had never done anything like it, and it was a massive success. We even had media outlets like HBO and Sports Illustrated requesting custom posts from us, alongside requests from players like Mesut Özil, Juan Cuadrado and Lukas Podolski.
You can see more at the Google World Cup Trends website.
The project gained huge coverage which included live coverage on Match Of The Day, BBC News, Wired, Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, L'Equipe, The Verge, Fusion, Recode, CNBC, Evening Standard, Sports Grid, Sportskeeda, Gear Patrol, San Jose Mercury News, Popsugar (2), Think with Google and more.
My role was as part of the lead creative team throughout the pitch, development of the concept and lead illustrator for the project. After launching the site, I worked every day of the World Cup as part of the team to find, write and illustrate over 250 ‘trends’.
Creative Director: Ricardo Amorim
Creative: Myself & Luke Wicker
Design: Peter Jupp, Clara Tudela, Brian Hurewitz
Dev/Engineering: Phil Hawksworth, Andy Shora, Alfredo Aguirre, Razvan Pavel, Darian Moody
Producer: Sam Clohesy
Strategy: Lachlan Williams
As part of the press the project was getting, PopSugar and the NYT came in to the office on the same day Germany beat Brazil 7-1 to capture the team in action:
