The goal of this back-to-school campaign was to create a series of social ads that feature a variety of new study tools available in Gemini, and to encourage students to use these features. Each video needed to demonstrate one of the core product features: Learning Coach, OpenStax, Data Commons, and Practice tools in a compelling way, but also send the message that they can help anyone study more efficiently. The key audience was specifically Gen Z students, so we wanted to make sure they would relate to the use-cases and feel motivated to experiment with these tools on their own assignments. That's why we needed our concepts, designs, and animations to reflect their interests and what they use to focus and learn.
We developed a series of social ads to demonstrate the various study tools on Gemini available to students at any level. Knowing we needed to drive engagement from Gen Z students, we began looking deeper into the audience for overlap in their habits, regardless of their choice in major or where they go to school. We found that this audience is among the earliest adopters of AI tools, especially for productivity, and that nearly half of them watch anime on a weekly basis. We took those statistics, married them with current pop culture trends, and built a design system to invoke a sense of familiarity.
Illustrators were brought in from across the globe to portray study scenes through a Lo-Fi lens of relaxation. With a growing concern over AI, a number of artists we reached out to were unsurprisingly worried about its use and the impact it has on their field, while others embraced this technology and were eager to be involved. We took this feedback and made sure to highlight these illustrators, helping them to grow their communities and compensate them well for their work. Despite Gemini being capable of generating this artwork, we shifted our focus to the human aspect of this work and how it can create a positive impact.
Within these illustrations, characters are shown studying in relatable scenarios with ambient animation to demonstrate all the ways Gemini can help take the stress out of studying. Cell animation was used to add a human touch to the animation and make it feel like marks made in a student’s notebook. These details came together to tell a story of collaboration between Gemini and the user, breaking complex topics down into summaries and study guides. Each video focuses on one of the features: Learning Coach, OpenStax, Data Commons, and Practice to show how they can be effective for any student in any topic. Our team led the concept, design, illustration, music, and animation.
These videos were among the highest-performing social ads for Google's back-to-school campaigns. Student engagement and user retention rose significantly after launch, gaining praise in the press as a genuinely helpful homework tool in a market oversaturated with questionable AI assistance in the world of academics. The success of these features has also pushed for a larger emphasis on personal education in Google's technology and product development. Google’s internal Gen Z review team even praised these ads for their audience relatability, and that success was apparent in how the audience engaged with the themes of the content. The insights we built the creative on provided a strong foundation, resonating well with this generation of students.
