Online shopping grew exponentially during the pandemic. In 2020 alone, the US experienced a decade’s worth of e-commerce growth in 3 months, fundamentally changing consumer shopping habits and expectations. With commercial activity exploding on Google, they needed to build awareness and consideration as a shopping brand.

Google Shopping allows users to find a wide breadth of products from a vast diversity of stores across the web—making it easy for shoppers to find whatever they’re looking for, whether it’s brand new items or vintage and second hand treasures, from major retail chains all the way down to small and local shops.

Like Google search, the shopping platform allows users to use intuitive, comprehensive search queries. It also enables them to tailor their searches by features like store proximity, reviews and ratings, prices, and personal values, or filter by product details and specifications to find just the right thing for them.

To build awareness and consideration for Google as a shopping brand, we found a way to make people think of it as a shopping destination—not just a search engine. The way we did it was simple: three words that cement a strong and direct CTA in the minds of consumers while implying that you are no longer alone in the complicated world of e-commerce; that now, you can shop with a trusted friend. Now you can “Shop with Google.”

The 3-month long “Shop with Google” multimedia campaign included film, OOH city takeovers, experiential OOH, shoppable murals, digital display, editorial partnerships and social media. It was punctuated with a wave of Holiday films and social assets that further established Google Shopping as the place to go for all of your holiday shopping needs.

Our qualitative research showed that people found online shopping to be disorganized, overwhelming, and hard to sort through. They felt it was hard to feel confident that you’re getting the best product or the best price. We had to show that Google Shopping takes the complexity out of shopping online and helps you find exactly what you are looking for.

Since people already turn to Google for help with organization, directions, answering life questions, and so much more, our strategy was to bring the helpfulness of Google to the madness of online Shopping.

Our campaign line “Shop with Google” doubled as a strong call to action to online shoppers. Its simplicity made the core message undeniable, and denoted helpfulness—like going shopping with a helpful friend you can trust. Leading with the master brand made Google top of mind as a shopping destination.

We leveraged the simplicity of “Shop with Google” to catapult our message into a 3-month national multimedia campaign including film, OOH, digital display, editorial partnerships and social.

The campaign launched with a film that interwove emotional storytelling with demonstrative UI, modeling the search behavior we wanted shoppers to try.

We showcased top holiday gifts with 3D, interactive billboards that engaged shoppers through multiple senses—in SoHo, an oversized Fujifilm Instax Mini 11 snapped photos that were printed on the spot, mimicking the functionality of the Instax instant-film camera. In Brooklyn, when people passed a motion-sensitive headphone display, they triggered audio of uniquely adapted holiday tunes.

And in partnership with AmEx, a series of shoppable murals helped communities discover and shop small women-led, Black-owned, Latinx, AAPI, and LGBTQ+ businesses in their neighborhoods. Local artists’ vibrant murals featured painted products from 26 small businesses, that could be scanned and shopped on the spot.

The highly effective campaign was made successful through our various multimedia touchpoints, with a strong result overall led by TV and display, with the majority of our budget driving 3pts+ of consideration lift.

The campaign included:

A launch film that exceeded goals for lift in brand consideration by 2X. It not only taught viewers how to use Google Shopping, but also inspired them to search for the featured sunglasses using the same term they saw on screen: “vintage scalloped sunglasses.”

Shoppable murals in four cities which garnered 2M in-person impressions, exceeded CTR goal by 30%, and received national news coverage through 23+ positive press stories

Editorial partnership with Paper magazine that drove 2M organic engagements on Instagram, outperforming @Google baseline by 28X

Experiential billboards in New York City which had 1.8+ in-person impressions across two locations and 35K+ interactions