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Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad
- cgranade 17y agoCheesy, but cute, and not nearly so misogynistic as what seems to be the norm this year.
- forsaken 17y agoBeautifully executed. The music was just right. Did a great job of showcasing the features that they have added to search (especially translations and flight status). It was such a stark contrast the other ads, really shows how well Google knows themselves. We find you information, and we make it incredibly simple.
- marilyn 17y agoI totally agree. It is amazing how much emotion music can add to something as everyday as google searches!
- physcab 17y agoThe Batman one was awesome. Too bad I can't find it anywhere. It was hilarious.
- cylinder714 17y agoCBS has all of the ads at cbs.com.
- tjoozeylabs 17y agoProbably the least expensive super bowl ad too, fyi
- tjoozeylabs 17y agoscreencasts <3
- deleted 17y ago[deleted]
- joeyo 17y agoFor super bowl ads, I would imagine that the actual production cost is almost a rounding error compared to the cost of the airtime itself.
- waterlesscloud 17y agoSeemed like a first draft ad to me. Seriously, that was an afternoon of work.
- patrickgzill 17y agoDo you as an English-only speaker, really want to marry and have kids with a French-only speaking woman when you don't even know how to say "you are cute" in French? So the premise seems a little dumb.
- paulgb 17y agoI'm assuming the searches happened over a longer period of time than those 52 seconds.
- spencerfry 17y ago"But love is blind and lovers cannot see." - Shakespeare's The Merchant Of Venice
- jonny_noog 17y agoWhen I first met the German woman who is now my wife, she could barely speak a coherent English sentence, but we managed. Two weeks later we were a couple, a year later we were married. That was 7 years ago this month. I still don't know how to say "You are cute" in German.
- autarch 17y agoSheesh, try google! (http://www.google.com/search?q=translate+you+are+cute+into+german&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t http://www.google.com/search?q=translate+you+are+cute+into+g...)
- nostrademons 17y agoThere's also Translated Search: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=clir:1&q=you+are+cute http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&tbo=1&tbs=clir:1&...
- jonny_noog 17y agoThanks guys, I'm aware of my options. :P I wonder if there's been a noticeable spike in search terms related to that ad, e.g. people searching for how to say "you are cute" in French.
- psawaya 17y agoI'm surprised they advertised search, and not, say, the Nexus One or any of their newer products. Still, definitely one of the best commercials I've seen.
- acangiano 17y agoSearch is where they make their dough.
- psawaya 17y agoYep, but at this point, Google is literally synonymous with search. Android, however is still much less recognizable than the iPhone. Then again, marketing to that many people is something of a science, and I admit to not understanding it well.
- patio11 17y agoGoogle may be synonymous with search. However, huge portions of the population have not integrated search into their lives as tightly as you and I have (Google says I've done 19k searches and averaged about 550 a month last year -- I rather doubt my typical customer has). Evangelizing search to the rest of the population makes Google serious amounts of money -- that is one reason they've been dumping a lot into advertising search as a desired behavior this year (in Japan at least). Both the US and Japan are rich countries with ubiquitous net access and mature Internet markets, right? What do you think was the growth in the number of searches last year for each country? Pick a percentage. Here's the real numbers: http://bit.ly/aFdenY http://bit.ly/aFdenY (I used bit.ly only because the URL gives away the surprise.) I don't think we're anywhere near Peak Search, either. (For example, I'm seeing YOY growth in the 50% region on some very popular queries for non-techie customers like, e.g., [halloween bingo cards].)
- psawaya 17y agoThanks for that link. That's a huge change for 2009! I believe that hanging around tech people gives one the false impression that Google has saturated the search market.
- albertsun 17y agoGreat commercial, but the main message for me is that the Bing team has been doing something right. The quality of other search engines has caught up to the point where brand is an important factor in the fight for search market share. Google's product is no longer clearly better than the alternatives. Notice how most of the rest of the commercials on are for things like snack food, beer and cars where the image and consumer perception of the product are more important than the product itself. Those companies products don't do enough to differentiate themselves, so brand advertising has to do it. This could be a sign that the search (really the information discovery) market is maturing and that product innovation will slow down as the major players focus all their attention on marketing and battling for market share. I hope not. While Google Search is good, it's nowhere near good enough yet.
- Alex3917 17y ago"Notice how most of the rest of the commercials on are for things like snack food, beer and cars where the image and consumer perception of the product are more important than the product itself." Interestingly enough, the reason those companies buy all those ads is that enough Americans go to the store to buy more beer/chips during halftime that the ads actually pay for themselves before the end of the game. IIRC the checkout scanners enable the execs at these companies to watch their sales in real time.
- llimllib 17y agoAnd how would they be able to distinguish between a sale due to an ad and one that's not? Or are you merely saying that "these companies" (like CareerBuilder? or do you just mean Coke, Bud Light, and Doritos?) have so much revenue that merely Super Bowl Sunday pays for the ads?
- endtime 17y agoWell, they have sales data from before the ad ran, and then they get sales data from after the ad ran. It's not a perfectly controlled experiment, but if the ad has an impact (or doesn't) they'll be able to tell.
- msluyter 17y agoThis ad caused more than one girl at our superbowl party to exclaim "OMG I'm going to cry!" By that measure, I think it was quite effective.
- mynameishere 17y agoPosted for no reason whatsoever. The greatest marriage-related ad ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97X9huy7pHQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97X9huy7pHQ
- rms 17y agoThe rest of the ad campaign: http://www.youtube.com/searchstories http://www.youtube.com/searchstories
- zck 17y agoI was surprised the ad didn't end with the person clicking on "I'm feeling lucky".
- ynniv 17y agoThat was my first comment as the ad ended.
- Confusion 17y agoI think that is because of reproducibility. People are bound to repeat the searches in the ad and they will usually turn up sufficiently similar results to make them think "it works". On the other hand, "I'm feeling lucky" is much less likely to yield the same result.
- n8agrin 17y agoA minor observation, but I appreciate how they show the user highlighting text in one of their search results for truffles. Having done some usability work and watched users work on their computers, highlighting what is being read is such a common behavior, it's cool to see Google so in touch.
- sketerpot 17y agoPeople really do that? I had no idea. Why do they highlight what's being read? I'm confused and intrigued.
- Micand 17y agoI do it to keep track of my position when I scroll a document.
- neilk 17y agoNervous habit, really.
- davidw 17y agoIt's the 21st century equivalent of tracing your place on the page with your finger as you silently mouth the words. Kidding:-) I had a boss who was always highlighting stuff back and forth, and it definitely seems to be some sort of nervous habit more than anything.
- larsr 17y agoWhen I'm reading something it helps me find my place again if I get interrupted or need to look up something in a different browser tab. It also makes text more readable when sites do odd things like put medium gray text on a light gray background (for instance HN comments with a score < 1).
- madh 17y agoDo users still highlight when using a trackpad instead of a mouse?
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- jolie 17y agoThis was the one ad I saw tonight where I didn't feel like I'd been given the brown acid by a bunch of desperate ad agency creatives. Nice one, Google.
- tsally 17y agoJust noticed that the version posted on Hulu has a flight from Delta Airlines come up in search. The one posted here has a flight from American Airlines. Seems that Google put some effort into remaining airline neutral.
- jey 17y agoThe YouTube one is older... so maybe Delta partnered with Google for a product placement? The Super Bowl version is a bigger deal than the YouTube one after all.
- ubernostrum 17y agoThe one I saw broadcast during the game was a Delta flight, not AA.
- invisible 17y agoIt's way more likely that the results that came up for the AA flight were not exactly what was requested (although 100% what I'd want to see if I was searching for one of the other items on the page).
- w1ntermute 17y agoCopy with HTML5 version (for those of us living in the future): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_BFRbgoSs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=et_BFRbgoSs
- invisible 17y agoDoes anyone know why the flight number changed from this ad and the REAL one that aired during the superbowl (flight status of DL 8601 vs AA120)? It's also strange that the date stayed the same but the time changed. Perhaps it's because there are trivial results (see the "old" ad)? The old one has results for atlas sound and acrylic adhesive. I don't know why this point stood out to me - are there any other changes I didn't notice? http://www.hulu.com/adzone/watch#50032769 http://www.hulu.com/adzone/watch#50032769
- treyp 17y agoyep, that definitely must be it. if the reason they're advertising is to sell the brand, and it's a brand competition with Bing who claims Google has sometimes irrelevant search results, then of course they need the most relevant search results possible in this ad even though the focus was on the flight status up top, the search results for sound parts are bad results. so i guess they switched it up in case anyone noticed that. interesting find!
- naqeeb 17y agoIf Google does a Super Bowl ad next year, what about using AdSense in the commercial? This way they can offset the cost by providing an ad within an ad.
- jdietrich 17y agoI think this ad absolutely exemplifies why Google so utterly dominate almost everything they turn their hand to. The ad is utterly simple, to the point that there is practically nothing to subtract; This elegance of form reveals the magic of the substance. Compare to recent ads by Yahoo and Microsoft: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqbaZcX67L0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqbaZcX67L0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl2OXiX5esE http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl2OXiX5esE The ad by Yahoo is particularly poor, but they both make the same mistake - lots going on, but very little content. They're dancing around the subject, almost as if they're ashamed to talk about their product. Lots of glittering generalities, but no specifics. The ads could be for any old crap. They are the crudest of branding exercises - show vaguely positive images and slap your name on them. The Google ad takes a simple narrative and uses it to show you their product and what it can do for you. They don't talk about wonder and joy and 'bringing people together', they just get on with making it happen. Google say "This is our product. We think it is magical and wonderful and profound. We credit you with the intelligence to come to your own conclusions.". Google know that their product is so powerful and elegant that it needs no explaining. They understand the implications of their technology on a deep and fundamental level. They can talk about search so beautifully as to make people cry. That is as great a commercial advantage as I can possibly imagine.
- neilk 17y agoDude, did you see the Chrome ads? A lot of them were terrible. You're right that this piece did achieve "Googliness" in an ad context. Maybe they've found their message finally.
- nroach 17y agoAm I the only one that finds this ad kind of scary? 58 comments so far and not one mentions privacy. Google can tell a lot about a person from their search history, and this ad illustrates the point well.
- neilk 17y agoShut up geek, can't you see this imaginary couple is in love? I think you touch on another unstated reason for this ad. You could see it in the Youtube comments... people were saying things like "yeah, Google will take over the world, but when they do I will be cheering it on... they're awesome". People are clearly struggling with this increasing unease they have about Google and online services while embracing them more and more every day. This ad helps them get in touch with their positive feelings. Which is not exactly a lie, but it serves Google's interests.
- moconnor 17y agoI did. From that perspective (my life seen through the lens of Google's information on me) I found the music pretty creepy, too. It reminded me of http://www.fatal-attarction.net/dl/DuBistTerrorist_EN_deubbed_HD.mp4 http://www.fatal-attarction.net/dl/DuBistTerrorist_EN_deubbe...
- zyb09 17y agoThe add totally backfired on me. It's like: "Look what we can know about you by just looking at your searches, haha!"
- johnnybgoode 17y agoI am not a fan of Google at all, and even I must admit the ad was pretty good. I'm interested in what's behind this reversal, though. I read that Larry and Sergey had previously vetoed any kind of Super Bowl advertising. I think albertsun and others here are right -- Bing is now a serious competitor.
- dboyd 17y agoEric Schmidt has posted to the Official Google Blog regarding the Ad... http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-and-super-bowl.html http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/love-and-super-bowl.h...
- lunchbox 17y agoIn addition to building up the Google brand, this ad introduces many viewers to uses of Google they weren't aware of (finding how-to's and advice, tracking flights, translating phrases, etc). Remember, a large number of people still don't realize you can use Google for more than simple keyword searches: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8hthy/anybody_else_find_yourself_somehow_pegged_as_a/ http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/8hthy/anybody_els...
- neilk 17y agoYes! I'm surprised that more people haven't commented on this. I believe this is the main reason why they even considered running an ad. Most of the examples are contrived to show off little-known but useful Google features. Why else is she in Paris? Otherwise, the ad is largely celebrating how Google has entered almost every part of our lives. It doesn't really tell us anything we don't know, just associates it with pure gushy sentiment. I guess that's the branding part.
- axl 17y agoI'm wondering what made them go with this oversimplified ad rather than one of their other glorified ones such as this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC8ogWwZxwQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC8ogWwZxwQ
- truebosko 17y agoProbably because the ad you linked is ... a lot more confusing than the other one. It's very fast-paced and shows a lot of various products, which to the average person watching the SuperBowl might be a bit much. The ad they aired showed not only how simple Google is, but also how powerful it is. I think it was a great mix.