This is Fari when she was 17 in Tehran. Two of the many things I love about Fari are her empathy and tender heart. She cries easily. And when she cries she gets a headache. And when she gets a headache it turns into a migraine. And when it turns into a migraine she suffers from nausea and tunnel vision. And I’m holding Google personally responsible.
(A sidebar here. Fari’s life story is an epic tale on an international scale. If she ever starts a blog, I’m toast.)
Back to Google. The other day I was just Googling around, and I came across one of my favorite Google ads. Fari was looking over my shoulder, and she started to sob. Then she grabbed my computer and watched the ad ten more times. She sobbed ten times harder. In minutes, she had a migraine.
And me? Well, I was saying empathetic things like, “You know, Fari, this is one of the best examples of storytelling and product demonstration I have ever seen.”
Through her tears, nausea, and tunnel vision, she just stared at me.
I have friends and family who work at Google. I read articles about Google’s Creative Lab and how they do what they do. And what they do is nothing short of revolutionary.
Sure, it helps when your product is the most powerful, user-friendly search engine on the whole planet and is used daily by the whole planet. It also helps that Google continues to innovate with other products that make all things Google seem like wizardry. If Google were around five hundred years ago, I’m convinced they would have been drowned in a well.
Here’s an article from CA about Google Labs. In my opinion, how they work is a blueprint for the agency of the future, in-house or otherwise.
https://www.commarts.com/columns/google-creative-lab
Oh, and before I forget, here’s the Google ad that gave Fari her migraine. I hope you’re happy, Google. And if you must know, yes I think I may have shed one tear–although it could just as easily have been my allergies.
A life in creative thinking 