Google is powerful.
We all know this much.
It has made dictionaries dust collecting mouse-pads, door to door encylopedia salesman unemployed drunks and has even garnered official status as a verb.
What many people don't know is that the folks at Google are currently developing thier most ambitious project to date.
In a secret basement of the California headquarters of Google, a group of scientists, mostly Chinese, Korean and German, are harvesting a clone of Jesus of Nazareth.
Yes, while the employees line-up for sushi and fresh omelets in the cafeteria upstairs, scientists are hard at work ressurrecting Jesus.
(Remember a few months back when archaelogists uncovered a tomb, which they hypothesized belonged to Jesus?
James Cameron produced a documentary about it. Well, turns out that this was in fact Jesus.)
Through their high-powered connections, Google executives were able to purchase the corpse, extract some intact DNA and, in months, will uncover a newly generated clone of the most important figure in the history of mankind.
And brand him.
Working closely with their marketing department, Google Jesus' first move will be a worldwide tour- a teaser campaign for the equally ambitous integrated campaign to follow:
What Would Google Jesus Do? or www.wwgjd.com.
People across the globe will be able to pose all their existential and spiritual questions to GJ through the mini-site search engine, text messaging, phone calls, emails, even an interactive billboard in Times Square.
Executives predict that the most commonly asked questions will be...
"Why I am here?" and "What is the meaning of life?"
As one would expect, he will answer these imponderables cryptically. This will increase the word of mouth potential of the marketing campaign as scholars, journalists and bloggers across the globe will desperately attempt to decode GJ's evasive responses.
It will surely be a phenomenon.
Now Google is not stupid.
There is the whole issue of the rapture, the second coming, armageddon. Whatever you want to call it.
That's why after six months of increases interest, they will pull the plug on the project and declare GJ an imposter- a crazy man from Queens name Lou LaGrasso who desperately wanted to be famous. Werner Herzog will make a documentary, tabloids will fill their pages with conspiracy theories and Larry King will be busy for months.
Risky, I know.
What great marketing initiative isn't?
Yet, their hope/gamble/expectation is that www.wwgjd.com will have filled such a profound void place in people's lives, consumers will continue to type in their queries.
After all, isn't Google's mission answering questions and guiding searches?
If the brand wants to continue its domination and growth, it needs to address more than the commercial and intellectual questions that consumers currently look to it for, but also delve into the spiritual.
