Google Super Bowl Ad "Parisian Love" wins

For the first time in Google's history they entered the Super Bowl ad world in a big way by securing a commercial ad spot during the 2010 Super bowl. A bold move for the search giant, so failing was not an option. Google choose to secure their ad after half time during the third quarter of the game. Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced on his Twitter account, "Can't wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said "Hell has indeed frozen over") ."

The 52 second ad was a view of their search engine doing what it does best, searching. The Search story followed a person trying to find information for courting a french girl. The Search story included mainly organic search and local search results. Interesting that they did not included paid search results, their bread and butter for revenue. The search results included using the web for definitions, translation and travel information.

"We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search," wrote a bashful-seeming Schmidt in a company blog post. "Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact ... But we liked this video so much, and it's had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience."

Why this 52 second Google ad won:

• Branded advertising, "Google" was the name appearing throughout. You knew exactly who the advertiser was as compared to others who you did not.
• A story was told, you followed the progress and at the end wanted to know how it plays out.
• Educated on the use of its products, clearly demonstrated why it is easy to use and the many variations that it can be used.
• Soft sell, no talking or must buy now.
• Non-bashing, did not say bad things about competitors or why we are the best.

What Google could have done better:

• Slow it down. For thus that are digital savvy we could follow but still was difficult. I had to watch several times to see all the nuances. For the older demographic that is coming online in droves, there as No way they could have followed.
• Make this viral by at the end instead of saying "search on" say the story continues here with a link to their Youtube site with the continued story.
• Include showing the browser arrow scanning the paid search areas both top navigation and side.

Overall, I loved the spot which caught my attention from the other over-produced and played out scripts of the most of the other advertisers.

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