The initiative is called Project Re:Brief, as in rethinking a vintage creative brief for the digital era.
The work developed last year for Project Re:Brief was based on ads from the 1960s and 1970s.
Project Re:Brief is "an experiment, like how automobile companies build a concept car or clothing companies put on a runway fashion show," he added.
The goal of Project Re:Brief is to change minds on Madison Avenue about new technologies in general, and Google products and services in particular.
They are: Grow Interactive, which serves as the lead digital agency for Project Re:Brief; Johannes Leonardo, part of WPP, the creative agency; and Nexus Productions, the animation agency.
The focus of Project Re:Brief — as in rethinking a creative brief — was to reimagine for contemporary consumers four classic commercials and campaigns from the "Mad Men" era, for Alka-Seltzer, Avis, Coca-Cola and Volvo.
In an attempt to improve the digital ad space, Google partnered with four brands to challenge them to make web advertising better in a campaign they're calling "Project Re:Brief.
Because Project Re:Brief is a Google marketing effort, the money to develop and produce the campaigns came from the Google marketing budget and the four marketers did not spend any ad dollars.
The initiative last year, known as Project Re:Brief, was meant to help change minds outside Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley about the role that technology in general, and Google products in particular, could play in mainstream brand marketing.
Google "reached out to us to see if we'd be interested in the second version" of Project Re:Brief, Mr. Osborne said, "and it was a bit of a beauty pageant; we had to write a brief" explaining why Volkswagen ought to take part.
