Was this Gail Harrison's doing?[1] She's Illumination Entertainment's head of marketing and branding. She would have had to sign off on this for Google to use a Minions™ character.

Gail is a major figure in the branding industry. She was behind the branding of The Simpsons characters. She managed the Disney Princesses branding. Before her work, there were princesses in Disney films, but they hadn't been harnessed into a supergroup merchandising team, pulling over $3 billion a year in tie-in sales.

"Mic drop" had to have her approval.

[1] http://variety.com/2016/film/news/illumination-gail-harrison...