Year in Search 2020
Although every year has ups and downs, 2020’s “Year in Search” acknowledged that this particular year hit on another level. It was a year in which communities everywhere were changed by the same shared experiences, and the campaign had to reflect this. We aimed to tell an optimistic story, despite the challenges of the year.
The multi-faceted campaign sought to reflect how people’s actions -both everyday and revolutionary — positively shaped the legacy of 2020. Not only did this campaign receive numerous awards, it also earned 350M+ video views and 40k global mentions.
Social Campaign
With a desire to increase engagement, extend brand storytelling and energy, and grow the brand’s social presence I led a team to develop the first truly bespoke social strategy/campaign in “Year in Search” history.
Rather than relying on a series of film cutdowns, the plan included various bespoke social content franchises. Each post told an individual, additive story into a top “why” query or search trend of the year. The result, Year in Search 2020 was not only one of the most impactful Google films to date, it was also one of the brand’s most successful social campaigns.
Results
The social campaign for “Year in Search” 2020 earned 27M owned (organic) impressions, which was 2x from the previous year. The campaign also tripled the engagements from the previous year. IG stories had an unbelievable 75% completion rate and the top viewed Instagram reel (a new feature of Instagram at the time) earned 1.3M views.
Interactive stories expanded upon top search queries of the year, while engaging community members across Twitter and Instagram/Facebook Stories.
Image carousels dove deeper into the top “why” queries explored in the full length film.
Single frame looping videos told snackable/shareable data stories aligned with user behavior on TikTok and Instagram Reels.