Many are scratching their heads at why Google felt the need to air an advertisement in one of the most prized spots on television – during the Super Bowl.
Rumors had been circulating pre-Superbowl that Google was planning something for the game, and they proved true when Google aired this ad, from its online video search stories, called Parisian Love:
The video is an assembly of searches presumably performed by a man on his way to Paris that starts with “study abroad Paris France” and ends with “how to assemble a crib”.
The video has actually been on YouTube for over three months, as Google pointed out on its recent blog post about the ad. Though Google CEO Eric Schmidt claims that they simply aired the video since they liked it so much and wanted to share it with a wider audience, many are skeptical that Google would spend such a massive amount of money (New Media Age reports that the 53 second ad would have cost the company $5 million USD to air).
Google has gone one step further and actually put up ads for the keyword ‘Google TV ad’ that links to the video on YouTube, and has even taken out ads for some of the searches performed in the video.
MediaPost writer Wendy Davis thinks the ad might back fire and provide privacy advocates with “new ammunition”
The spot, Parisian Love, vividly demonstrates just how revealing users’ search histories can be.
The fact is, people’s search activity reveals a tremendous amount about them — probably more than they realize. And Google saves every last query and the IP address it originated from for at least nine months.
But this is not actually the first time Google has run a TV ad. Back in May, Google ran its first TV ad for its Chrome browser. The team said they had wanted to raise awareness of their new browser, and also better understand how TV ads could supplement their other online media campaigns. It must have gone over well, or Google would not have taken this big step of running such a costly ad over the weekend.
Search Engine Land writer Danny Sullivan suggests that Google may be feeling the pressure to reach consumers, something he supposes may have to do with competition from Bing. Sullivan also wondered why Google didn’t spend the money promoting its new Nexus One phone, which needs much more publicity than Google’s already world famous search engine. To Sullivan, Google’s ad was a waste of money, and a signal to Bing that Google may be getting a bit nervous.
…Or, maybe, as Schmidt said, they genuinely just wanted to share a nice search-inspired Parisian love story with the world.
Tariq Ali contributed to this article
Kaila Krayewski is a freelance journalist with a passion for all things internet. Having worked for nearly two years as the public relations manager for an internation search engine optimization company, and publishing hundreds of articles (how-to, informational, and otherwise) on SEO, she knows a thing or two about the field. Furthermore, having just started up her own website blondetraveler.com, she is doing her best to keep one step ahead of the search engines in order to keep the traffic flowing.
Read other articles by Kaila Krayewski
