Creativity and Technology
Key Takeaways
During Advertising Week, Lorraine Twohill of Google and David Droga of Droga5 sat down to have a conversation about the intersection between creativity and technology. Here’s what they had to say.
On Google’s New Logo
Twohill: “We always thought our logo was beautiful, but it was designed for a desktop era. We needed to refresh it and evolve it; we needed a smaller icon we could use in more places…we were creating a visual language to bring to all of our products.”
Droga: “I like it. It’s like the coolest guy you know just discovered a tailored suit.”
On Mobile
Twohill: “For us it’s critical. We’re known to the world as a desktop box that you [use] to search for something; a desktop doorway. We needed to make sure we were there with you in a mobile world. One of our biggest challenges is encouraging people to download the Google search app. We’ve had to become extremely good at marketing apps…we had to get very good at mobile advertising.”
Droga: “We always think about campaigns as big, but consumers consume most of it in their palms…Every single piece of technology gets more and more intimate. What was offensive online is now even more offensive in your hand. How do we show some restraint?”
On Emotion
Droga: “We’re constantly seduced by and excited by technology. But Google has embraced the emotion of technology almost faster than the storytellers of the business.”
Twohill: “That’s been a journey for us too, frankly. When I first joined Google we would create very rational [campaigns] about educating people. It was good, valid work that helped explain what we did, but it didn’t make people feel anything.”
Droga: “At the end of the day, nothing replaces [creative] that makes you feel something.”
On Hiring Talent
Droga: “We’ve changed the way we hire people because we have to have people who can pivot and iterate in real time, but not compromise their value as storytellers.”
Twohill: “We talk about hiring athletes: people who can pivot and move from team to team; [people who are] very agile. It just moves so fast, so you have to have the talent who can cope with that, who can handle constant change. Context and immediacy are in demand. The obvious example is Oreo’s tweet during the Super Bowl. Yesterday we did the doodle for water on Mars. That’s new for us; usually we’ve done doodles on someone if they’ve been dead for 100 years.”
On Technology as Canvas
Droga: “You want to be as up to date as you possibly can, but you don’t want to run blindly into anything. Too many people think technology is a solution or an answer. The idea is to do a campaign on Instagram. These are just canvases; they’re not solutions.”
On Authenticity
Twohill: “We’re in this golden age where we know more about our consumers, but also our consumers know more about us. I love [companies that] just create work that matters; you see much more of that. There are companies that are responding to this new age and doing great work.”
Droga: “Well, they kind of have to. Brands have to say what they stand for beyond the marketing. A brand’s body language has to be in sync with its mouth now. And consumers care. That’s what’s amazing. The response for us is to live up to that opportunity.”
Twohill: “I think a lot about authenticity and empathy. If we have empathy for the user we create much better work.”
Source
"Creativity and Technology." Lorraine Twohill, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Google and David Droga, Founder and Creative Chairman of Droga5. Advertising Week, 9/30/15.