The Google Charm Offensive

Bob Garfield of Ad Age has an interesting take on Google’s Super Bowl ad. (You can read the entire article here)

We seriously doubt the ad — a simple POV montage of internet searches by an unseen guy — was intended to demonstrate the comparative ease and utility of the Google search engine. Googling is nearly a universal experience, and (notwithstanding Bing’s mild disrespect) isn’t itself the subject of much grumbling worldwide. No, this was merely an exercise in storytelling. And a lovely, romantic one at that, told, to a lilting piano accompaniment, via a succession of search terms:

“study abroad,” “paris france,” “cafés near the louvre,” “translate tu es trés mignon” [result: "You're very cute"], impress a French girl,” “chocolate shops,” “paris … ”

And so on, through courtship, marriage and the instructions for assembling a crib. You can imagine how women reacted to this. If they didn’t well up with tears, surely they clutched their chests and sighed, “Aaaaawww.” Men, too, by the way. Where AdReview spent the week, it was all anyone wanted to talk about.

The Google Ad was definitely about more than highlighting the ease of searching with Google. Anyone that uses a computer has, I am sure, used Google many times over. As big as Google has become as a company, this ad was about keeping mistrust at bay—about keeping a positive public image alive. And done simply, as with all things Google, what a heart warming story it was.