Nightwalk represents a huge leap forward in how Google Stories are told, by marrying film with an immersive audio-guided urban street-safari, marking Google’s first nighttime Street View experience. Where the film ends, the online experience begins, allowing people all over the world to explore the vibrant creative culture of Marseille at night.

Hundreds of high-definition photospheres allow users to take a tour with a local guide, or explore the streets and stories of the neighbourhood in any order. By capturing the sights and sounds, we transport visitors to another place. Embedded YouTube films introduce neighborhood's street artists and locals.

There was great public support for Google telling the story of Marseille (a national treasure often overlooked). Not only did we have over 1 million take a walk, but visitors were thrilled to share the experience with their friends, generating over 40 million social impressions, and becoming a trending topic on Twitter in France.

Overall, the response was overwhelmingly positive, striking a cultural chord around the world via influential press sources like The Verge, Engadget, Konbini and BuzzFeed. The latter actually labelled the experience “The best use of Google maps yet.”

Combined PR efforts generated close to 88 million impressions.

Insight: We use Google so often, we take it for granted.

Strategy: Show the power of Google products to help ordinary people achieve extraordinary things, and to motivate people to experiment with Google products themselves. Our aim was to inspire more people with the potential of Google products beyond just the everyday.

Idea: The creative idea combined documentary-style filmic storytelling with an innovative, interactive experience. The film told an emotional story of one woman’s quest to document her city. The film ended with a seamless transition beckoning people to an immersive website, where they could experience the best of Google products while exploring the city of Marseille.

Night Walk in Marseille is the first-ever night time Street View.

The campaign represents what we see as future of storytelling, combining the best of age-old approaches with the most exciting developments in technology.