Google Wins at 2019 Experience Design & Tech Awards

Event Marketer announces the winners of the 2019 Experience Design & Technology Awards, the only global recognition program awarding the outstanding use of social media, event technology, and design to elevate live experiences. This year, Google sweeps, taking gold for the CES 2019 Google Assistant Playground Experience: The Ride in the “Best Trade Show Exhibit (50’ x 50’ and Up)” and “Best Two-Story Environment” categories, while also taking Silver for Google Next ‘19 in the “Best Overall B-to-B Environment” category.

Of the hundreds of entries, Event Marketer editors carefully select winners who represent the best designed experiences and the most effectively “wired” engagements.

“The best events are designed with a strategic framework in mind and live-wired with well-integrated technologies that transform the attendee experience and deliver results,” says Event Marketer Group Editor & Publisher Jessica Heasley. “This year’s winning campaigns help highlight the community of creative architects and technologists that, together, make this industry special and successful.”

Take a look at the 2019 Experience Design & Technology Awards excerpts on Google’s winning campaigns below:

Best Trade Show Exhibit (50'x50' & up)

Gold Winner
Campaign: The Google Assistant Playground Experience: The Ride
Client: Google

After several years with a minimal presence at CES, Google comes back in a big way in 2018. For its follow-up presence, the brand builds another two-story structure with a total of 36,000 square feet of event space. The narrative through line: How people can use Google Assistant through all of the twists and turns in their crazy, hectic, workaday lives.

Google brings that promise to life with a variety of interactives — the most buzzworthy being The Ride, a seven-car amusement park-like dark ride experience that takes guests on a journey through the chaos of a day while trying to get a cake for an animatronic grandmother’s 90th birthday. (Among the components that go into the ride: 493 feet of track, delivered to the show on three semis.) Throughout the expo, more than 13,500 guests participate in the ride.

Other displays include a diorama of Las Vegas that translates visitors’ “Hey Google” queries into animated activity (asking about flights to Las Vegas caused a model airplane to fly across the mini Vegas skyline); an automotive-themed section showing off how the product provides hands-free help while you drive; and a media studio that hosts podcast recordings and product demos.

Best Two-Story Environment

Gold Winner
Campaign: The Google Assistant Playground Experience: The Ride
Client: Google

Google’s assignment for CES is to highlight the full range of capabilities of Google Assistant. So it uses 18,000 square feet of street-level space to set up a range of vignettes to show off how the digital personal assistant works in everyday life. Among them: On the Go, a Las Vegas-themed diorama where asking Google Assistant a Las Vegas-related query triggers an animated response (for example, asking about rates at the MGM illuminated the lights at a model of the hotel); In the Car, which shows off hands-free navigation and how to pair your phone with your car; and the Friends of the Assistant display, a curated gallery featuring more than 100 devices that work with Google Assistant. There is even a multipurpose studio that hosts podcast recordings, product demos and (of course) a Google Assistant guided meditation, and a café with snacks and beverages provided by Assistant software partners Pizza Hut and Starbucks.

But all of that activity couldn’t tell the whole Assistant story, so Google adds an 18,000-square-foot second level that was home to a theme park-style ride that takes guests on a journey through the chaos of a day while trying to get a cake for an animatronic grandmother’s 90th birthday.

Best Overall B2B Experience

Silver Winner
Campaign: Google Next ’19
Client: Google

For the latest installment of its annual event, Google brings Google Cloud to life at San Francisco’s Moscone Center. More than 31,000 guests come together for a week of keynotes, chats, spotlight sessions and hands-on demos. A key feature is the Showcase, which comprises five “neighborhoods” with 16 different zones designed to highlight Google Cloud’s selling points. There are also themed lounges, including an Inclusion Lounge designed to be a home base for guests from underrepresented groups and allies.