Google is enlisting Raptor Scottie Barnes and play-by-play announcer Jack Armstrong to humorously dunk on people’s photos, which are then easily fixed by technology available on Pixel 8 smartphones.

The latest campaign by Cossette shows Pixel 8 users taking photos in in different settings, such as a bar or in the woods. Barnes and Armstrong then do colour commentary that’s heavy on hoops jargon, referencing phone features like a “best take,” speculating about whether a guy can “rebound” from a less than flattering photo and using a magic eraser to “get that garbage outta here” and to delete a trash can from the background of a photo.

Nicole Ellerton, group creative director at Cossette, tells strategy the hero spot is about having a friendly, playful and yet helpful tone to show off phone functionality and show how the Google Pixel 8 can help users deal with various pain points in the human experience.

With everyone looking for “the next sexy feature,” Ellerton says Google wanted to really focus on how helpful the technology is in everyday moments.

Ellerton says the brand is “absolutely going after iPhone users,” and people who are a bit on the fence about brand loyalty. “[Google] wants to make people curious and spark people to go, ‘am I really happy, am I settling with the photos I’m getting?'” she says.

Last year, Cossette told the story of the Google Pixel 7 via Scottie Barnes’s introduction to the city of Toronto. In the “What’s good, Canada?” spot, Barnes, a Florida native, admits he didn’t know what to expect when he first came to the city, and shows him taking photographs of Toronto Caribbean Carnival revelers on city transit and neighbourhoods such as Kensington Market.

“We definitely wanted [him] back again,” Ellerton says, adding that using Armstrong as foil made for a dynamic pairing.

In partnership with Cossette, Google Canada is leveraging a combination of television spots, digital OLV and social media to show consumers what the Google Pixel 8 can do for them, and create new expectations of what a phone is capable of.

According to Ellerton, with the extension of social, it is a bit bigger effort than last year’s Google 7 campaign.

Bell Media is handling media.