In partnership with the NCAA® (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and one of the US’s largest broadcast networks, we turned a typical March Madness sponsorship into a demonstration of Google Cloud technology by making game predictions–in real time–on live TV.

To pull this off, we had to reinvent the commercial-making process—from creative development through media trafficking. With close collaboration among several different partners, we were able to assemble, render, and traffic a TV spot in minutes.

In the end, we turned six data-driven predictions into the most relevant real-time TV spots ever created–live–in front of 43 million viewers.

Objectives

The objective was to increase consideration of Google Cloud among C-level business leaders and IT decision makers, in a way that would stand out from entrenched cloud competitors (AWS, Microsoft). Instrumental to this was a rise in the perception of Google Cloud as being enterprise ready and as a leader in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

These enterprise change agents see data everywhere. They look at the world and imagine the wealth of data that flows, thinking about what they could do if they could only capture and use it. They think about data for their companies, of course—but also in other aspects of life, such as sports.

To connect, we needed to relate to them as people, not just business people. They want to be amazed with new ways of doing things, and not be “marketed to.” This gave us the inspiration and permission to break the rules of B2B marketing and be more daring in our approach. A partnership between Google Cloud and the NCAA was the perfect platform to capture their hearts and minds.

We came up with the idea to “show, not tell” and demonstrate what Google Cloud technology can do in real time by turning our commercials into live predictions about the March Madness games they were running in. To pull it off would require using advanced technologies (such as AI and machine learning), creative flexibility, speed, accuracy, coordination among multiple stakeholders, and reinventing the commercial-making process as we know it.

Outcome

Google Cloud’s first-ever national brand campaign set a new bar for the brand, driving notable impact in the following areas:

1.) Data-enhanced consumer experience

We built a live product demo of Google Cloud technology, generating six (6) accurate predictions and six (6) unique real-time ads. All six delivered a data-enhanced, relevant experience for the audience.

2.) Data-driven behavior change

Seven times the engagement on Twitter when our prediction ads aired (vs. when paid media went live prior to the prediction spots).

3.) Business impact

The campaign drove a 91% increase in product interest, a 13% rise in unaided brand awareness, an 11% boost in consideration, a 42% lift in brand search volume, and 30% more new site visits with a 19% increase in time spent.