Ubisoft: Assassin's Creed
Origins ft. Google AutoML
Who said that gaming can't be educational? I led Google's data strategy team for "The Hieroglyphics Initiative" - Ubisoft's widely publicised community engagement project for the launch of Assassin's Creed: Origins. This was designed to advance academic research by crowdsourcing community ML annotations and deploying Google's AutoML algorithms to automatically identify & translate hieroglyphs.
In July 2020, and with the blessing of the Ubisoft team, we launched Fabricius - our longterm extension to the project - in partnership with the Google Arts & Culture team (as covered by the BBC & Wired). Having supported this project long past its launch, I understand the lasting impact this work has had, and continues to exert, in academic circles & classrooms.
Adidas: GMR
Play Connected ft. Google Jacquard
Adidas approached Google with a realisation that the next generation of their users already had a default preference for their competitor. To connect with these users, they felt that their analogue product somehow needed to begin innovating for a digital age.
Through creative data research our team were able to give Adidas a simple conclusion; for this audience, "digital" + "football" means one thing - FIFA. Within 3 months of the project kickoff, we had aligned on a direction rooted in Google's data, and developed a working prototype with our team's Creative Technologists.
Over the next 3 years, we helped to refine the technology alongside Google's Jacquard (wearables) team and EA games; finally launching a purchasable product in partnership with FIFA Mobile. As intended, the story was widely picked up by media outlets including Wired UK/US, T3, Hypebeast & The Verge; generating the sales of thousands of products worldwide.
H&M: Ivyrevel
Coded Couture ft. Google Awareness API
In an age of personalisation, consumer clothing has been one of the slowest sectors to meaningfully respond. I led Google's data strategy team in developing "Coded Couture" with Ivyrevel, leveraging Google's awareness API to turn your habits into personal, functional & affordable artworks.
Hostelworld
Speak the World ft. Google Translate API
When you're travelling alone, meeting new people can be awkward; at least that's what our data showed. To help their customers break the ice, I led Google's research team for Hostelworld, leading to a custom deployment of the Google Translate API.
Mars: Whiskas
Kitten Kollege ft. YouTube
Back in 2014, every company on the Internet seemed to be appropriating online pet culture; apart from pet brands. I led Google's relationship with Mars and AMV BBDO throughout the inception and development of Kitten Kollege; personally advising on Search and Video audience behaviours by applying machine vision to identify relevant annotations with high platform demand but limited supply.
Due to the time elapsed since the original inception of the project I can fortunately divulge some of my specific findings. Demand for "training" and "educational" visual content was outstripped by "play" and "cute" content by a factor of over 200:1. In both dog and cat content, aggregate search queries on breed amounted to >70% of volume, suggesting people don't own a dog/cat - they own a labrador/tabby. The concept of "cat food" juxtaposes that consumer reality. Amongst further findings, through use of NLP I uncovered the surprising early emergence of pet slang across digital fora, comprising vernacular such as, "smol puppers & kittis" for "small puppies & kittens".
Six years later, iterations of our work are still in use by the brand, and our campaign has gone on to win a Lifetime Effectiveness Grand Prix at the APG awards in 2019.
BT Sport
The Home of Cricket ft. YouTube
When you need to broaden your product's appeal; tap into gateway interests. By deploying set-theory at big-data scale, I led the research and insight development for BT Sport's award winning campaign: "The Home of Cricket" - picking up the APG's "Best Use of Data" award. Sadly I couldn't make the shoot for the case study.
Tulip ft. YouTube
Sometimes, projects don't need data strategy. I worked with Amsterdam's creative team to help design and deliver Google's Tulip work in April 2019.
Warner Brothers
Harry Potter: Fantastic Beasts ft. Android
If you've ever used "OK Google, Lumos" to activate the torch on your Android phone, you've used a little of my team's work. I led our data collaboration with Google's Assistant team, to explore devices' most used shortcuts and map them against existing Assistant functionality, which our creative unit subsequently transformed into a series of "Spells" (that magically still work in 2020).
Yoox
Most Exclusive Collection ft. YouTube
Data shows that leveraging the urgency heuristic is one of the most effective conversion techniques on the web. I led Google's data strategy team for Yoox to identify this insight and translate it to YouTube.