2026 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

In Canada, Google Pixel faced the challenge of increasing brand consideration, as it is a challenger brand. They needed to do more than just sell a phone; they had to capture the country’s heart.

Their perfect moment arrived with the Toronto Raptors' 30th anniversary, a cultural event that would unite the entire country in a wave of basketball passion, so they leveraged Google’s existing partnership with the MLSE (Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment).

Knowing the digital audience of modern NBA fandom is 10 times larger than the size of TV broadcasts of live games, how could we, a tech brand, take our MLSE partnership beyond the arena walls and into the heart of the Raptors fans’ conversation?

They asked themselves: what truly unites Raptors fans? It’s the unscripted, electric moments that explode on social media and the stuff you can’t plan for, but to join in, you must be lightning-fast and speak the language.

The answer was the Sports Engine!

It wasn't about scheduling posts; it was about reacting with the speed of the game itself. A game-winning shot at the buzzer? The brand could be right there with fans, celebrating that
victory in their feeds, in that exact instant.

They became part of the game’s heartbeat, moment by thrilling moment. The strategy was digital-first, designed to intercept fans where the real game happens: on social media during live play. To win in this arena, we had to move at the speed of basketball.

Each week was a new game plan, with real magic happening mid-game.

When a player hits a clutch shot right at the buzzer to win the game, Sports Engine can quickly grab that moment and turn it into an ad. It’s that fast.

To celebrate their fans' diversity, they launched over 35 unique ads across a focused three-week period, constantly adapting to the flow of the games and translating their ad copy across 3 different languages – English, Hindu and Chinese.

Leveraging a new technology to build custom placements at the speed of the game introduces a new set of challenges. Although a high degree of ad variation was automated, human QA and tight partner approvals were critical to move with speed.

Using Google’s Gemini technology, they built a custom AI agent trained to understand Pixel and MLSE brand guidelines, Pixel product features, and leveraged an X social Api to incorporate real-time social listening to identify in-game moments generating the most buzz with Raptors Fans.

This allowed them to create ads that felt like part of the game-time experience, reacting instantly to big-picture storylines and even split-second plays as they happened.

By immersing their brand in unscripted, electric moments of real-time fan conversation, brand lift study results show that in a span of three weeks, they saw up to a 3-point lift in brand consideration for Pixel, and a 50% higher than benchmark and higher than other Google Pixel social campaigns with higher spends and longer flights.

The campaign also achieved 2MM reach, 28MM impressions at 44% more efficient CPM.

Credits

- Google: Laura Pearce (Head of Marketing, Google Canada), Chris Chan (Head of Consumer & Retail Marketing), Rohan Sarna (Product Marketing Manager), Chris Henry (Senior Product Marketing Manager), Adam Lewis (Google Sportlab US)
- MLSE: Malick Ba (Manager, Global Partnerships)
- WPP: Rui Vieira (SVP, Client Leadership), Lisa Finelli (Group Director, Client Lead), Anubha Jaiswal (Activation Manager), Ahsan Butt (Associate Director, Analytics), Ed Tsue (Global Chief Strategy Officer), Jen Park (Global Chief Creative & Innovation Officer), Zoe Munson (VP, Creative), Kevyn Kurata (VP, Strategy), Amy Lower (Operations Manager), Katherine Wroblewski (Integrated Strategy Director)