Google India’s campaign Googlies, featuring former cricketers Virender Sehwag, Anil Kumble, Shane Watson, Ricky Ponting and Mohammad Kaif, has secured the 18th position in IMPACT’s Top 75 Campaigns of 2025.
The two-minute film centres on Sourav Ganguly’s fictional obsession with “Googlies,” a curiosity-led Google search feature, much to the frustration of his former teammates. The narrative opens with Sehwag lamenting how Ganguly’s constant calls have disrupted his peaceful post-retirement life. What follows is a series of vignettes featuring Kumble, Watson, Ponting, and Kaif, each receiving unexpected phone calls from Ganguly, who quizzes them with deceptively simple questions and mocks them when they fail to answer.
Googlies by Google is positioned as a campaign designed to rekindle curiosity and make Google Search feel playful again. It revolves around quirky, seemingly straightforward questions that lead users to surprising and interesting answers when searched.
In the film, Ganguly, referring to himself as “Sourav Gangoogly,” takes particular pleasure in taunting the cricketers, calling Sehwag “a nawab without a jawab” and telling Watson, “Watto, you don’t know squatto.” As the torment escalates, Sehwag and Kaif appeal to Google to keep Ganguly occupied. In response, Google introduces a daily Googly for users to solve, offering prizes and opportunities to meet their favourite cricketers. The film ends on a humorous note, with Ganguly continuing his relentless Googly-throwing despite the intervention.
The campaign was created by Bare Bones Collective and led by Girish Narayandass and Anuya Jakatar.
For the 2025 rankings, the IMPACT editorial board evaluated campaigns across parameters including narrative clarity, creative execution, originality and production quality. The final list recognises campaigns that demonstrated strong messaging and cultural relevance.
