2024 was full of moments no one saw coming.

People craved Dr Pepper and Pickles. They fell in love with a baby hippo called Moo Deng. Obsessed over an Olympian nicknamed “Pommel Horse Guy”. And Gen Z had the most unhinged summer of their life, aka brat summer.

In mining all these unexpected trends, our data and strategy team sought a fresh perspective on our year-end Google tradition. So, in 2024, for the first time ever, we framed our annual recap – Year in Search – through the lens of Breakout Searches (terms that went from being almost completely unsearched, to spiking 5000%+ in search interest). This first-of-its-kind approach allowed us to identify emerging cultural shifts and moments that truly defined 2024, reflecting the pulse of culture like never before.

Google's annual Year in Search campaign reflects on the year’s biggest trends and moments. In 2024, for the first time ever, we celebrated Year in Search through the lens of Breakout Searches (trends that went from almost unsearched to a spike of 5000%+ in search interest).

From record-smashing and internet-breaking Olympians to a worldwide country music revival, 'brat summer,' and an irresistible baby hippo, the campaign highlighted the biggest Breakout moments that shaped the year in ways no one saw coming.

To bring Year in Search 2024 to life, the creative team developed our most integrated campaign yet, starting with a first-of-its-kind Year in Search Doodle on the Google homepage that led tens of millions of viewers to our longform hero film on YouTube. On social, we created dozens of Breakout fandom-centric films as well as a mini-treasure hunt encouraging people to search for Breakout trends on Google to unlock 15+ easter eggs in Search results. And last but not least, we compiled hundreds of custom Trends lists in more than 70 countries, which were distributed with major news outlets around the world.

For more than a decade, Google’s Year in Search has been highlighting the moments that captured the world’s attention. But 2024 was a wild year, full of moments no one saw coming.

So to best tell the story of such an unexpected year, the strategy and data proposed a new approach to the data.

By focusing on trends that spiked more than 5000% in a short period of time, for the first time ever we were able to feature the freshest fandoms and cultural shifts like never before, truly reflecting the pulse of culture and the moments that shaped 2024. And by building a proprietary data model for social, we were also able to identify Breakout trends that would authentically resonate with fans – and get them talking.

Together, the strategy and data insights teams research paved the way for creatives to make the most out of the data, developing the most watched Year in Search in history.

After evaluating thousands of potential Breakout trends that encapsulated the year, our next challenge was to find the best way to bring them to life in a way that would resonate globally.

By featuring Breakout searches from record-breaking Olympians to the resurgence of country music, from the brat summer craze to a charming baby hippo called Moo Deng, our long-form hero film formed the bedrock of the campaign.

On social media, we curated content to reach the biggest fandoms in music, gaming, sports, and entertainment — from Chappell Roan and Sabrina Carpenter to Bluey and other emerging trends.

We also created a social media treasure hunt inviting people to unlock 16 different Easter eggs within Google’s homepage. Each Easter egg celebrated a different Breakout Search of 2024.

Our first-of-its-kind Year in Search doodle took over Google’s homepage on launch day and drove tens of millions of viewers to watch the hero film on YouTube.

Lastly, our top trend lists were published by news outlets around the world, totalizing more than 4.2k articles globally.

Across the campaign’s 300+ assets, the iconic Google Search bar served as a unifying design element, helping drive Google Search brand equity.

Overall, we used data to spotlight a variety of stories and moments from 2024. From everyday to the epic, we looked to strike the right balance between celebrating the icons themselves and the fans who they inspired, ultimately ensuring that everyone could see themselves in this Year in Search campaign.

With 765M video views across platforms, the campaign became the most-viewed Year in Search yet and Google’s most positive brand moment of 2024. Driven by the first-of-its-kind Doodle, the long-form film saw a 10x YoY increase in organic views on launch day, becoming the #8 trending video on YouTube.

Our fandom-centric social films resonated with a variety of fan bases, including Chappell Roan, Bluey, Steph Curry, Sabrina Carpenter, and more. The Stray Kids video alone reached 4.7M views on IG without any paid support.

The campaign also broke into culture, with parodies by Twitch, Stephen Colbert’s Late Show, a segment by Jimmy Fallon, and thousands of UGC reactions and positive sentiment on social, resulting in a 6X lift in Year in Search conversation on Meta (a record for the platform’s Buzz Lift studies). Additionally, we partnered with NPR to bring Sabrina Carpenter, one of the biggest Breakout artists of 2024, to the Tiny Desk stage.

Our curated Trends Lists earned over 4.2K articles globally, with positive coverage in mainstream (AP, NYP), consumer (Architectural Digest, Conde Nast Traveler), and Gen Z social outlets (Pubity). We landed TV interviews on multiple national and local shows, garnering 2M English and 1M Spanish language live TV viewers.

For the first time on a Google campaign, we created a series of 15+ easter eggs in Search, igniting millions of engagements among fans. They popped in on online community forums and even on the Grammys red carpet, where Shaboozey mentioned his Easter Egg in a live interview.