Comments on: Google Airs TV Ad During Super Bowl – But Why?

By: allyaec

allyaec — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:02:38 +0000

Simple, clean and effective and the music is an excellent choice. I might be a nerd for liking it, but it is a good advert because it has motive and purpose.

It clearly highlights the main function of the product , as well as showing the newer features of Google search. But it mainly demonstrates the way modern life is ‘searched’ online.

By: Mike-in-Denver

Mike-in-Denver — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 03:45:08 +0000

I thought that it was interesting that Google advertised it’s search service rather than any of their new services that are coming out. Are they feeling any heat from Bing?

By: Stupidscript

Stupidscript — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 23:00:12 +0000

I’m going to agree with Bas van den Beld.

This was money well-spent, IMHO, to reinforce the notion that Google IS search. It addresses the Bing ads in addition to the web-wide discussions about how many fingers it has in everyone’s pie by going back to its comfort zone, and demonstrating exactly what it was that made it a big player in the first place, without denigrating anyone in the process. The Bing ads seem petulant in comparison, and this ad contrasted nicely with the web chatter about their wide reach being a bad thing. It was relaxing and gentle and reminded me that using Google could be a calming experience, especially when compared to the frenetic experience Bing describes in its ads.

By: Kelsey Childress

Kelsey Childress — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:37:23 +0000

I liked the google super bowl ad a lot better than any of the creepy bing ads (especially the porn one!). I was with about 10 people watching the super bowl, and everyone had a positive reaction to it.

By: dazzlindonna

dazzlindonna — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:38:34 +0000

I’ve discussed this a little via Twitter today, but it will be easier without the 140 character limit here. I’m not sure this ad was all that effective across the less-savvy Internet surfers out there. My family members – who use the Internet a lot, but aren’t in the Industry – didn’t get it at all. In fact, they never even noticed that there was a story woven into the searches. The only thing they noticed was a bunch of “lame searches” (their words). Also, they felt as if Google was simply “showing them how to search” and they were offended. “We already know how to search; how stupid do you think we are, Google?” was their response. I, of course, kept my mouth shut because I wanted to get this honest reaction from the average user. Now, perhaps that says more about my family members than I might like, but at least here, it showed that the average joe user wasn’t paying enough attention to notice the storyline woven into the searches, and therefore got nothing but aggravation out of the commercial. Not what Google intended, I’m sure.

By: jabellas

jabellas — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:24:58 +0000

I disagree that the ad was a waste of money for Google:

1) 3 million is a drop in the bucket for a company like Google
2) Ads can have multiple audiences – the general public, employees, current clients, vendors etc. You better believe that a Super Bowl ad, specially one with such a high emotional content will play very well with employees.
3) If your main competitor is advertising as heavily as Microsoft is advertising Bing, you need to have a presence as well, even if it is token.
4) They knew the ad was good and popular from its time on youtube, you can’t buy research like that.

By: Bas van den Beld

Bas van den Beld — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 15:30:25 +0000

Once again a very thorough analysis, thank you for that :).

I was wondering, what do you think of the suggested theory that Google did this simply for image? With the ad they address their core business: search. With all the acquisitions, launches of new products and even a phone people ‘might’ look at Google as the big company who swallows everything around them. With this ad, they might get some attention back to their core business: relevant search results, there where the Google “image” is good.