WSJ: Google to show off search with new Super Bowl Ad

[WeBuyThe.Com]

Google is turning to the big screen–and the big game –to promote its search engine.

The search company has purchased a Super Bowl ad expected to air during the third quarter of today’s game, according to people familiar with the matter.

These people say the ad is one of the online videos it released last year to promote its search engine. The series, which Google dubbed “search stories,” highlights various ways Google can be useful by telling stories through a string of search queries and results. Each ends with the slogan “search on.”

Google has bought a tiny number of TV ads before and has been spending more heavily on print and billboard ads too. But this is the first time that the company, which has shied away from traditional advertising throughout his history, has done something on this scale.

Indeed, Google chief executive Eric Schmidt acknowledged Google was up to something unusual with a mysterious post on Saturday from his official Twitter account: “Can’t wait to watch the Superbowl tomorrow. Be sure to watch the ads in the 3rd quarter (someone said ‘Hell has indeed frozen over.’)”

A Google spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Around the same time as Schmidt’s tweet, John Battelle, a journalist who blogs about technology and media, reported that Google is planning to air a Super Bowl ad from its search series.

It is interesting that Google is choosing to make a splash in Internet search, an area where its brand is firmly entrenched–as opposed to seizing the slot to promote one of the lesser-known products it has been trying to marketing more heavily, like its software business.

Google created the search story campaign in partial response to Microsoft’s heavy marketing push around its new search engine Bing, according to people familiar with the matter. While Bing has mainly taken users from Yahoo’s search service so far, it has provoked Google to defend its turf.

The ads–which Google released on YouTube last year–were created by Google’s in-house creative agency and received more than a million views, in total.

One video called “Parisian Love” tells the story of an American who falls in love with a French woman while studying abroad. The camera is focused on Google’s search box and search results page, showing a progression of search queries from “Impress a French girl” to “long distance relationship advice” to “jobs in Paris.”
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2010/02/...atestheadlines

[PokerPie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxyVpSUw6Kg

Such a great ad, I loved it.