Hasta La Motion!

Small World, Google Translate’s free pop up restaurant in New York, features in #EveryoneSpeaksFood, a short film highlighting tasty dishes inspired by dozens of global cultures, artfully prepared by a cadre of 18 acclaimed chefs. The film piques interest in a pop up café featuring menus in multiple languages (necessitating diner’s use of Google Translate), and meals incorporating dishes from cuisines as far flung as Israel, Korea, Italy, Sweden and Ireland. Everyone speaks food.

m ss ng p eces conceived the pop up restaurant idea with Google, designed all branding components, and produced every aspect of the experience, telling the vibrant story of the experiential event in the #EveryoneSpeaksFood film. The project was helmed by PARTY Executive Creative Director Masa Kawamura, who had recently joined the m ss ng p eces roster.

Executive Producer Kate Oppenheim explained the impetus for the campaign, “Everyone Speaks Food is an idea that celebrates the connections that we build over a meal and the richness of food cultures around in the world. We were inspired by the way that Google Translate creates functional and personal connects between people everywhere.”

When Google approached the production company, the brief was starkly simple: create an experience that celebrates Google Translate’s ability to bridge cultural divides. Cam Luby, head of the cultural activations for Google’s brand marketing explains, “There is something very unique in how Google Translate can break down cultural barriers. Behind best-in-class AI is a very simple product that addresses one of the biggest obstacles to universal understanding: language. We wanted to demonstrate this to people in a simple and relatable way. The culinary metaphor was the perfect stage to demonstrate the role of our technology”.

The resulting #EveryoneSpeaksFood campaign was a multi-faceted event experience which goes far beyond the tasks normally performed by a production company. Creativity was deployed on all elements of guest interactivity and engagement, and event details no matter how small, including the menu, decor, posters, the website and a globally inspired playlist. There was even a very special (and very popular) Small World donut cart, which distributed over 30,000 donuts to passing New Yorkers and prompted millions of organic social media impressions through Instagram, and custom Snapchat geo-filters.

Everyone Speaks Food Credits

The Everyone Speaks Food project was developed at m ss ng p eces, by executive creative director Masahi Kamakura, creative director Jamie Carreiro, executive producers Kate Oppenheim, Ari Kuschnir and Brian Latt, director Josh Nussbaum, head of production Dave Saltzman, project management director Brian Mitchell, art director David Trumpf, art producer Kari Anderson, project manager supervisor Sara’o Berry, project management supervisor Kathryn Berk, project management coordinators Jonathan Figueroa and Zachary Kislevitz, copywriters Gideon Jacobs and Cassie Marketos, designers Jordan Bruner, Costa Damaskos and Stephane Rodriguez, campaign video line producer Mike Prall and campaign video production manager Jason Reif.

Google’s team were head of Google brand breative Michael Tabtabai, head of cultural activations Cameron Luby, Google brand marketing manager Ben Quesnel, Google Translate marketing manager Jesse Friedman, head of brand and reputation, events and experiences Michelle Rosen Sapir, brand marketing manager Kyle Gray, social lab marketing manager Jane Hall, events marketing managers Katrina Lau, Melissa Luu, and Lorin Pollack, brand marketing manager Tracy Hepler, communications managers Evan Barbour and Kara Berman.

Design and branding work at The MP Shift was by co-founders Amy Morris and Anna Polonsky.