The creative idea was to showcase the magic behind Google’s products, in real life and in a way that would be the coolest possible: by playing and experimenting in real life, in a Google branded gaming environment: the first branded Escape game, the Google Escape Room. A fun escape game full of technology where players had to solve riddles with the help of Google Apps such as Google Photos, Google Translate, Google Cardboard and many others in order to get out of the room within 40 minutes.

Google build the Google Escape Room, an interactive game in real life which took place from the 20th to the 29th of May in Central Paris. To create the game we brought together creatives, game designers and set designers who designed the gameplay with the whole range of Google’s Apps : Google Search: Players could use the app to find information such as a movie's release date/ Google Cultural Institute: players had to find a clue by literally diving into the painting thanks to a Kinect system/ Google Hangout: some clues were given to the players through the app/ Google Play Music: Players had to reproduce a melody they were listening to/ Google Cardboard: players had to explore a 360° landscape with a Cardboard to find hidden symbols/ Google Maps: by solving some riddles, an immersive 270° street view mapping appeared on the wall.

To make the experience truly engaging, daily riddles inspired by the use of Google Apps were published on Google social channels enabling people to win tickets to experience the Escape Game. It became so popular that all 100 slots available for the public to win were given away 2 hours after we launched the campaign! And of course, all participants of the room shared their experience in social media, including the influencers who experience a Grand Première, live on YouTube.

So of course, we got great results (17 millions impressions, 1,8 millions engagement, 270 000 mentions of the hashtag), we got great blog and PR coverage (Forbes, AdWeek, Gizmodo, etc) but most of all, people loved it and we gave everyone reasons to engage with technology in a creative way!