In 2017, we noticed a gap between the number of Google Assistant-enabled devices that were purchased and gifted during the 2017 holiday season and the number of devices actually activated. With the 2018 holiday season in mind, our goal for this campaign was to drive activation and engagement across devices gifted and continue the momentum of our Make Google Do It campaign with a memorable holiday piece.

2018 proved to be a year of 90's nostalgia. With an eye toward the holiday season, we gave the world a gift of our own by reimagining one of the top holiday movies from the 90's: Home Alone. We recreated the iconic film in partnership with the person who knows it best, Macaulay Culkin. Now 38, he reprised his classic role as Kevin McCallister—this time, well equipped to thwart the Wet Bandits with his Google Assistant and an array of Made by Google devices. In homage to the original film, we recreated classic scenes, paying close attention to every set detail and using the same lenses and camera techniques to ensure that the new footage mixed seamlessly with scenes from the original film. We partnered closely with Macaulay to craft lines that best embodied the evolution of his character Kevin and classic Home Alone moments almost 30 years later.

In recent years, smart home devices are some of the most gifted items around the holidays, and our campaign was designed to get people excited to activate and use their new Google Assistant gifts. We seamlessly integrated a range of Made by Google devices (Google Home Mini, Google Home Hub, and Pixel 3 XL) into classic scenes of the iconic Home Alone film, empowering Kevin McCallister to make the most of his day and defend his home from the Wet Bandits—all without lifting a finger.

Launching right before the Christmas holiday, Macaulay Culkin announced the work to the world on Twitter, quickly followed by exclusive coverage on the Today Show, Buzzfeed and CNET. After the film went viral in the first few days of the organic digital launch, our paid media plan kicked in to sustain momentum. The spot ran in cinema, on broadcast, digital and social channels for the remainder of 2018, with additional coverage on air during Christmas day basketball games and football bowl games.

To delight existing Google Assistant users, we launched limited time Easter Egg responses to Home Alone related commands. For example, users could ask “Hey Google, did I forget something?” to which the Assistant would play back the epic “KEVINNNNNNNNNN” scream from the original movie.

The campaign went viral. Within the first 24 hours of launch, it racked up over 36 million views and 382,000 mentions, quickly skyrocketing to the #1 trending video on YouTube—all organically. It even trended on Google Search. People were searching for an ad. By the end of the campaign, the work was viewed over 359 million times with a video completion rate of 88%. Over 3,000 different media outlets covered the work worldwide. This video quickly became the most liked in Google’s history and generated the largest spike in positive Google mentions in all of 2018. Lastly, the campaign truly delivered against the brief, driving 5x more efficiency in activating new users (at the lowest cost per acquisition in US Assistant brand campaigns to date).