Google // The Pinball Machine
GOOGLE - THE PINBALL MACHINE
Custom Pinball Machine @ Google Marketing Live
-Google AI + Ads-
Who doesn’t love a game of pinball? While at Deeplocal and in close collaboration with the Google Ads team, I developed a custom pinball machine with a team of designers, developers, and engineers for Google Marketing Live ‘23. The development of the game took deep research into pinball philosophy and gaming techniques, and the result was an interactive, playful, and light-touch educational look into Google AI-powered Ad products.
Role: Sr Creative Director @ Deeplocal. Creative direction: concept ideation, user experience, pinball game logic, design direction, animation and content development, final execution and playtesting.
Credit: Alive Coverage, unless noted
OBJECTIVE + STRATEGY
Objectives: Develop an interactive experience living as a hero demo that gives attendees an understanding of how Google AI helps businesses unlock growth, all living within Google Marketing Live ‘23.
To reassure customers that Google AI and the results they get from it are made better when combined with their own human expertise while building trust around Google AI offerings.
Use Google AI and the differentiators that Google offers to multiply your business results.
Emphasize the partnership between Google AI and the advertiser and the criticality of their inputs.
Strategy: Develop a playful introductory pinball game that drives deeper educational demos at surrounding product demos: 80% playful - 20% educational.
Outcome: A custom-built pinball experience - from the hand-illustrated playfield graphics to the digital animations triggered by gameplay, the pinball machine provided guests with a moment of joy within the conference while introducing the power of AI to marketing professionals. The game now lives on the Mountainview campus.
The three pinball machines were placed radially in the center of the sandbox dome. Here, guests lined up to play a game of pinball and learn about Google Ads offerings.
Motion graphics that reacted to different targets within the playfield told a story of creative, connections, and customers within Google Ads AI offerings.
Credit: Jason Rothenberg
The playfield (base of the pinball machine) features a hand-illustrated design with call to actions like “Scale Creative” and “Maximize Sales” that ladder up to the larger messaging at hand - Multiplying your marketing with Google AI.
The smallest details are accounted for - from Pantone-matched bolt heads to hand-drawn marketing taglines printed on the pinball machine.
Photography: Tristan Sadler
