• by Steve McClellan  @mp_mcclellan, March 11, 2013

Robert Wong is Executive Director of Google’s Creative Lab, the company’s in-house ad shop. And what a great dad. He showcased some of the company’s recent ads at the Four A’s Conference in New Orleans on Monday, his daughter Lucy’s ninth birthday.

While he couldn’t be home to celebrate with her, Wong enlisted the hundreds of attendees at his presentation to create a unique electronic birthday card. Or video actually. On his cue, the crowd sang Happy Birthday to Lucy while Wong caught it on his smartphone.

And who knows, if you happened to have been at the session singing along you might just end up in a Google ad some day. Wong noted that one recent Google spot featuring a dad writing letters to his newborn was based on a fellow Googler who did just that.

Wong’s advice to creatives: Obsess over the why; get out of the way of the story; if you have great product, make a great demo and don’t take yourself so seriously.