Fact Crescendo has been named the Google Creative Ads Lab Champions at the Google Creative Ads Lab, held from 22 to 24 July at the Google India office in Gurugram.
Organised by the Google News Initiative (GNI), the three-day program brought together selected 11 Indian news publishers to explore how artificial intelligence can be applied to creative thinking, campaign development, and new business opportunities for news organisations.
From Brief to Campaign in Three Days
Unlike traditional AI workshops that focus mainly on tools, the Creative Ads Lab challenged participants to solve real business and creative problems. Teams worked on actual client briefs and followed a structured process of Think It, Make It, and Pitch It, taking ideas from concept to campaign presentation in less than three days.
The sessions were led by Stu Turner, Brendan Collogan, and John Duck from Three Are One, who guided participants through creative strategy, storytelling, rapid prototyping, and pitching. Rather than focusing on technology alone, the emphasis was on understanding the client’s problem first and then using AI to develop stronger creative solutions.
Reflecting on the program, Stu Turner said the biggest takeaway was understanding “how AI actually accelerates creative work, not replaces it.” He added that what impressed him most was seeing teams move “from brief to ready-to-ship ideas in less than 48 hours,” driven by clear frameworks, structured workflows, and a willingness to experiment.
AI Beyond the Newsroom
Throughout the program, participants learned how to use Google’s most advanced Generative AI toolkit including Gemini, Vids, and Flow and the latest versions of Gemini Omni, Nano Banana, Veo, to support brainstorming, storyboarding, scripting, video creation, and campaign development while keeping human creativity at the centre of the process.
According to Durga Raghunath, Head of News & AI Partnerships (India/APAC) at Google, the Creative Ads Lab was designed to help publishers explore practical uses of generative AI beyond newsroom workflows. By combining creative strategy with AI-assisted production, the program encouraged news organisations to create new value for audiences, partners, and advertisers while building more sustainable business models.
The program was supported by the Google News Initiative team, including Pallavi Agrawal, Program Manager, who worked closely with participating publishers throughout the event.
Fact Crescendo’s Winning Campaign
Representing Fact Crescendo were Mayur Deokar, Drabanti Ghosh, Hrithik Mahajan, and Kisan Sharma. Their campaign was recognised as the strongest overall entry, earning Fact Crescendo the Google Creative Ads Lab Champions title.
The team developed a creative campaign for a real-life rural bank client brief aimed at spreading financial literacy awareness and neutralizing phishing-related anxiety among its customers through a special digital tool, using AI-assisted workflows for research, concept development, creative production, and presentation.
Commenting on the achievement, Rahul Namboori, Editor-in-Chief of Fact Crescendo, said, “As publishers, we’re always looking for better ways to create quality content with the resources we have. The Google Creative Ads Lab showed us that AI can help us improve creative production while also creating opportunities to develop new services and sustainable revenue models.”
Fact Crescendo plans to apply these learnings across its editorial, fact-checking, and media literacy initiatives while exploring new approaches to content production and long-term sustainability.