Love is Listening

Audience Analysis for Google

Pictures taken from various sources. This project is part of Master in Branding of the School of Visual Arts. The team members are Tara Chen, Ina Dimitrova, Kristina Ermolenko, Michelle Kwiatkowski, Christine Shin, and myself. Class conducted by Andrew Millman from Interbrand. None of these data used are coming from Google.

Challenge

In the age of information, we are continually seeking updates with our devices; from Facebook to news feeds. Our phone becomes the irreplaceable part of our lives. One of the phenomena that appear from our addiction to phone is Phubbing– the act snubbing your partner in favor of your phone. Based on a study conducted by Baylor University, 46% of people phubbed by their partner, and 22% of them caused tension.

Google wanted to take part in solving this issue. They wanted to create a meaningful and healthy connection between us, and technology.

How might Google create a program that creates healthy behavior toward the use of technology? Particularly on the issue of Phubbing.

Insights

From our research and interviews with adults who severely affected by Phubbing phenomena, we found out that technology is not the only causes of Phubbing effects.

Beatrice de Gelder, a cognitive neuroscientist & neuropsychologist, said: “Listening is more complicated than simply hearing and knowing languages.”

Even though technology changes the way we interact with each other, we still by nature are weak at retaining a conversation. It took an effort to listen by looking at the gesture, tone, facial expression and the context of the discussion.

We spend 60% of our communication time listening, but we only retain 25% of it. – Harvard Business Review

People aren’t good listeners in general, but technology doesn’t have to make it worse.

Execution

As an enabler of every progress of life, Google has given us the opportunity to learn, succeed, and be heard. But they should also give us the chance to learn how to listen.

On Valentine’s day, we encourage Google to partner with StoryCorps, a non-profit that has been doing well on archiving great stories through pop-up recording booth. Google with the AI and AR technology could allow these archived stories told more interactively.

Following that campaign, we also encourage Google to implement little updates on the Google Calendar that allow people to find time to listen, on the Google Maps to look at locations where people could have an intimate conversation, on the Google Home to remind us to keep in touch with our loved ones. All together, we call this implementation as Google Hint.