Did Google Use Apple's TV Ad Playbook?
Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 8:40PM For advertisers, the Super Bowl is as much the “big game” as it is for sports enthusiasts. This year that was more true than ever before, because the televised broadcast brought a record 106.5 Million viewers. In the post Internet bubble, fewer new technology companies are using the expensive, broad-reaching television broadcast to build brand awareness, opting instead to make their dollars work harder at measurable activities that convert to sales. That leaves the door wide open for established brands like Budweiser, Coca Cola and Doritos - the ones that can afford the lofty ad rates - to use the time to create entertaining, “talked about” vignettes that enforce the meaning and positioning of their products.
Despite the Super Bowl being a mecca for established consumer brands, Sunday’s game was the first one to include an advertisement for Google’s dominant product, search. Many have commented on why the company chose now to run the ad, and whether the company’s virgin effort at broadcast advertising was meant to prove a bigger business agenda in the advertising community. For me, the ad was most notable because of its use of the product to tell a brand story. Among a sea of ads that used slapstick, animals, and underwear, the Google commercial seemed to take a strategy right from Apple’s advertising playbook for its initial foray into television.
Five plays I saw called:
1. Use the product to tell a story. In the Apple spots, a friendly narrator tells the story of a customer journey, ending with the line “there’s an app for that.” The Google ad tells the story of adventure, discovery, love and family through searches. Each step in the journey has a solution in the Google results set that advances the customer’s story.
2. The product is the hero. People are a distraction in Apple ads, and while iPods used to feature silhouetted dancers, most Apple commercials now are about the apps. Except for the disembodied finger, for the iPhone, it’s all about the software. Google’s spot starts with its iconic home page filling the screen, which is only replaced by its familiar results pages. The television stands in for the PC, and the audience looks right over the shoulder of the searcher entering terms and phrases, just as I peek into the iPhone the finger points to and swipes.
3. Be gender neutral. Although the Super Bowl tends to attract advertisers with a propensity for frat humor and belly scratching, Google, like Apple has, tried hard not to offend men or women. The story in the ad is universal, and while it is clear a man is entering the searches, women in the audience can appreciate the romance of Paris, and the happy ending of beginning a family.
4. Lather, rinse, repeat. The world believes all touch screens use the gestures that Apple’s iPhone does. The constant repetition of the gestures within the commercials, played in frequent rotation during popular television programs, trained the audience even before they purchased the device. Within the Google ad, the searcher performs the same activities several times over – enter search term, then click on results.
5. Don’t go for the cheap joke. It was an ad about romance, and the cursor skated across - but never clicked on - the “I’m Feeling Lucky” button. Sure Apple has done its share of cheap jokes in the Mac versus PC story arc, but, in the categories Apple dominates, iPod & iPhone, Apple doesn’t disrespect their leadership position with skeezy parents or slapstick jokes.
life than whatever handset I am carrying. Since AT&T coverage is spotty at my home, and I don’t like to carry my phone around the house, I try to route inbound calls to my landline so I can hear the ring on all the extensions.
Google Voice icon.;)
Gearhead Gal
My Nexus One arrived while I was at CES. Having launched the first Android device, the T-Mobile G1, as a VP of Product Development at T-Mobile, I have a particular insight into what Google values and doesn’t value about the existing business model for mobile phones. So I was particularly intrigued to see their unlocked phone experience. Under the banner of “do no evil” they represent that the company – and the Android team – know what’s best for consumers. But if they did, they would know that sending an auto-generated email response to a customer care issue that suggests that a service response will come within 72 hours is not a good consumer experience. While they do not have a recurring subscription relationship with the customer that the carriers do, their brand is on the device, the consumer bought the product from their web site, and they have a responsibility to provide the service level a $500+ product should deliver. The fact that a GREAT customer experience may have been triaged for launch is no excuse not to have at least a good one.
I also believe that the consumer does not know how to use or trust the “community” in the apps marketplace. Reviews and ratings mean nothing if they come from the gang of software hackers and pirates in collusion with the developer who published the app. Enabling apps to enter your phone that can steal personal data also doesn’t feel like it falls under the banner of “do no evil.” For an open OS to be mainstream, the consumer MUST know where to place their trust. Apparently GigaOM agrees...