Why a Billboard That Got a Subway Station's Name Wrong Won a Grand Prix / GOOGLE "Voice Search"

The problem

Back then, searching on your phone still meant tapping with your finger, and people were skeptical about whether voice search could really work. Google had been improving its recognition accuracy, but that meant nothing if people never used it. The challenge was simply getting people to know about it.

The insight

Searching by voice is a completely different experience from typing. Accents, quirks in pronunciation, gaps between spelling and sound—say it out loud and it all comes through. So why not make the billboards something you have to read aloud? Instead of explaining with words, let people experience it with their voice. That was the core idea.

The idea

BBH and Manning Gottlieb OMD researched the place names and facilities near each billboard location and made every single one of the 150-plus boards different. Outside a stadium, a phonetic spelling of "latest scores." Outside a station, a phonetic spelling of the station's name. At first glance you'd just go "huh?"—but say it out loud and it clicks: "oh, this is about voice search." Because each sign was tied to its specific location, it made you want to try voice search right there on the spot.

What happened

Recall of the outdoor ads was three times the average, and 25% of people said they'd told someone else about it. Searches for "voice search" coming from London jumped to more than twice the rate for the UK as a whole. The campaign won the Grand Prix in the Media category at Cannes in 2012.

Afterthought

Who knew billboards could work like this—not just announcing something, but becoming the experience itself. By getting people to say the words out loud, the ad let them try the product before they even knew what it was. This campaign is from 2012, but it hasn't aged a bit. If anything, now that voice AI is part of everyday life, you can really appreciate how well this idea was built.

Awards

• Cannes Lions Grand Prix 2012

Tags