PLAYING WITH FIRE

TitlePLAYING WITH FIRE
BrandGOOGLE AUSTRALIA
Product / ServiceGOOGLE PLAY
CategoryA06. Use of Talent
EntrantR/GA SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Idea Creation R/GA SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
Production R/GA SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA
PR POEM GROUP Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 2 85P Sydney, AUSTRALIA
Production 3 METHOD STUDIOS Sydney, AUSTRALIA

Credits

Name Company Position
Hamish Stewart R/GA Sydney Executive Creative Director
Gavin McLeod R/GA Sydney Executive Creative Director
AJ Musial R/GA Sydney Creative Director
Xuan Pham R/GA Sydney Art Director
Ben Spooner R/GA Sydney Design Director
Kate Harrison R/GA Sydney Designer
Shruti Rai R/GA Sydney Senior Experience Designer
Blake Kus R/GA Sydney Associate Technology Director
Aaron George R/GA Sydney Software Engineer
Miles Disch R/GA Sydney Associate Software Engineer
Kate Allan R/GA Sydney Copywriter
Justine Cusack R/GA Sydney Social Stategist
Alex Weetch R/GA Sydney Senior Strategist
Cory Nicely R/GA Sydney Marketing Sciences Manager
Margo Lowry R/GA Sydney Content Producer
Julia Rush R/GA Sydney Producer
Natalie Brend R/GA Sydney Senior Account Director
Alex Cerbelli R/GA Sydney Executive Producer
Jeff Donios R/GA Sydney Senior Technology Director
Gertjan Leppers R/GA Sydney Executive Production Director

The Campaign

To launch Elizabeth Rose’s new single, ‘Playing With Fire’ and drive music fans to Google Play, we used the chorus as inspiration: “You know you play with my emotions / But you know I’m stronger / I said, “Don’t fuck up again, you’re playing with fire.” The idea: a game-like interactive music video that let you play with her emotions. You could mess with her head, make her cry, spin her out of control, ignite her anger, and more. Nine interactions, nine ways to play with her emotions. At the end of the experience, users could listen to the full album for free with a Google Play Music trial.

Creative Execution

Playing With Fire is a track from Elizabeth Rose’s debut album, INTRA. It’s about giving a dysfunctional lover one last chance. So the idea was an interactive music video for mobile, which literally allowed the user to play with her emotions. The experience is unique in that we effectively created multiple video layers to enable interaction, from foreground elements, to her performance layer, to the background animations. It combines game mechanics with a range of technologies, including HTML5 canvas, Web Audio API, physics libraries, real-time video sampling and playback, and a custom algorithm to animate PNG images to achieve video quality playback, creating an experience that works across Android, iOS and desktop. It was supported by a behind-the-scenes video, YouTube TrueView and social posts shared by Elizabeth through her social channels, teasing users to try playing with her emotions.

The experience, and Google Play, received coverage from a wide range of publications both in Australia and worldwide, including Mashable, the Daily Mail UK and many more - far beyond what most emerging artists could hope for, and driving users to Google Play Music and helping separate the platform from its competition. "Reminiscent of a Picasso painting." Yahoo7 News "Google just did something very cool." The Daily Telegraph "Regardless of how I interacted, it was a blast. Hopefully Google does not stop here." Betanews "Damn this is so cool!" Hook n Sling "ZOMG this is super cool... slay!” DJ KLP "An incredibly clever concept from a clearly incredibly clever artist." Auspop

Playing With Fire is a track from Elizabeth Rose’s debut album, INTRA. It’s about giving a dysfunctional lover one last chance. Rather than just let people play her new track, we let them play her. We created an interactive music video for mobile, which literally allowed the user to play with her emotions. We worked with Google Play to bring this experience to the masses, giving them a reason to consider Google’s music service over competitors like Spotify and Apple.

We looked to position Google Play as a strong partner for Australian music labels. Leaning into Google’s DNA as a technology company, it was a new way for Elizabeth Rose to innovate her art, realise her ambition for ‘music you could play with’, and bring it to a larger audience. For Google Play, it was a differentiator from the parity in streaming services, creating an experience that’s mobile first, authentic to the artist, but also uniquely Google.

Links

Website URL