Page 75 - The EDIT | Q1 2017

Behind the scenes of
‘The Google app and The Voice’
Ideas
75
Meet the team!
On behalf of everyone at PHD Australia who has made this campaign so successful,
Mitch Long, Strategy Director PHD Australia shares his ‘behind the scene’ knowledge with us!
Tell us a bit about yourself and what you do at PHD
I once heard someone describe what I do as “telling stories”, and in part I guess that is what a strategist does. In my mind,
I investigate problems and connect them with opportunities for innovation — preferably
with GIFs.
I began at PHD as an intern and moved full-circle through different investment and planning roles across the Google account before landing in strategy. Now I lead
strategy across brands including Google and Unilever down under.
Can you describe the process behind coming up with the idea?
I think the biggest take out from the process is that this wasn’t a campaign that was devised in a single strategic recommendation, but rather something we built a case for over various campaigns leading up to it.
We have been working on campaigns for the Google app since 2014, evolving from hyper-
contextual mass media launches to more deeply integrated partnerships. For each campaign we really delved into identifying actionable learnings that gave direction towards how we could drive stronger business results moving forward.
Our network counterparts in Indonesia had also done a Google partnership with X Factor that had driven some strong results, so we also leveraged many of these global learnings into creating our own recommendation.
THE EDIT ISSUE 05 | Q1 2017