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Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

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Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#101
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're missing the point. Google feels a need to respond to Bing, which it hasn't before. However stupid you may think the ads are, Google is responding as if Bing is a (potentially) legitimate threat.

Of course it is a legitimate threat - if Bing started doing searches in any consistently better way than Google I'd use that. I have about as much loyalty to Google as a service as I did to Altavista: i.e. practically none. I suspect others think this way and Google knows it.

I have quite a bit of loyalty to Google. I use them for RSS, Email, Calendar, Documents, mobile alerts, maps and phone service among other things.

I have no doubt that Google will improve and adjust to any threats Bing might one day bring. The cost of me moving all of my data and changing habits to another place would be high. That and there is no way in hell I'd trust Microsoft with my data.

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 th…

"IIRC the checkout scanners enable the execs at these companies to watch their sales in real time.", can you provide any further information or links on this? Shocking if true, and my quick google searching was fruitless.

Any book on Walmart will talk about their IT systems. Their main operations room looks like NASA's mission control. I recall that Walmart can redirect trucks on the road via satellite to different stores whenever demand suddenly fluctuates.

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#104
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, 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.

It's so far from a perfectly controlled experiment as to be useless. You have sales before the ad ran (when it wasn't the super bowl ), and you have sales after (when it was the super bowl ). That's a huge confounding factor; everybody buys chips, soda and beer on Super Bowl Sunday. They're not able to tell right away. They pay people like Nielsen millions of dollars to analyze the effectiveness of their ads at super…

If you have only one type of chip then it would be very hard to tell, but if you advertise for Doritos and Doritos sales spike 4x as much as your 10 other brands that weren't being advertised it's not hard to do the math.

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#105
post #11

I'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.

If you "read between the lines" you can see that they didn't advertise search, the advertised the Google brand. The search theme was just a means to deliver the message that the Google brand is an important part of our everyday life (as in this example, Google accompanies the protagonist through his Parisian romance).

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#106
post #18
post #3

Beautifully 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.

The Batman one was awesome. Too bad I can't find it anywhere. It was hilarious.

CBS has all of the ads at cbs.com.

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#107
post #66
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From pg's article ( http://www.paulgraham.com/bubble.html ): ...have you ever seen a Google ad? Something is going on here. Admittedly, Google is an extreme case. It's very easy for people to switch to a new search engine. It costs little effort and no money to try a new one, and it's easy to see if the results are better. And so Google doesn't have to advertise. In a business like theirs, being the best is enough. N…

Maybe this is just what you do when you've got a lock on 95% of your market, and you're massively profitable. Defensive maneuvers make more sense when you're executing flawlessly on the offensive front, and you've got resources to spare.

Google search share is 65.7% according to ComScore. Pretty dominant, but nowhere near 95%.

http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2010/1/c...

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#108
post #28

A 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.

People really do that? I had no idea. Why do they highlight what's being read? I'm confused and intrigued.

When 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).

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#109
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it is a legitimate threat - if Bing started doing searches in any consistently better way than Google I'd use that. I have about as much loyalty to Google as a service as I did to Altavista: i.e. practically none. I suspect others think this way and Google knows it.

Google's index is increasingly polluted. Let me give you an example, the other day I needed the exact address of an electronics store, I entered the name of the company and the street it was on. The top search results were "places to eat near..." - WTF? Who searches for places to eat near a named shop!? Similarly, if you search for "X review" you will mostly get pages that are just affiliate links to retailers and th…

We're both speaking in anecdotes, but this hasn't been my experience. I had my search box in Firefox set to Bing for several weeks, until it was just too annoying to re-do so many searches in Google and getting better results. For what it's worth, most of those searches tended to be technical questions, not local searches like you describe, but in my experience those are adequete on Google as well, and if something comes up incorrect my first backup is usually Yelp and not Bing.

Re: Google's Parisian Love Superbowl Ad

#110
post #99

I'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

Probably 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.
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