Even though TV advertising has now been overtaken by Internet advertising, there are still some slots in the annual TV schedule that are considered the ‘holy grail’ of advertising. One of those slots is commercial breaks during the Super Bowl, where advertising slots can cost millions of dollars each.
Google has previously shunned TV advertising as, let’s face it, it really didn’t need to. However, during last Sunday’s Super Bowl final, Google spent a whopping $5 million on a TV advert that showed the versatility of its search and how it can help you in all aspects of your life.
The simplicity and accuracy of Google’s search is what comes across best in this advert, as the searcher looks for information on helping him in his relationship with a girl living in Paris.
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxyVpSUw6Kg]Google’s decision to advertise on TV was such a shock that chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, posted a response to the advert on Twitter:
“someone said ‘Hell has indeed frozen over'”
Advertising spend on television may be falling behind Internet spend, but the Super Bowl remains at the top of the advertising tree. The NFL pulled in a staggering $213 million from TV commercials aired during last year’s Super Bowl final alone. The game itself lasts over 3 hours, allowing for a lot of commercial breaks – costing the advertisers around $2.5 million per 30 second slot.
SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan thinks that Google’s decision to advertise during the Super Bowl was as a direct result of pressure piled on by Microsoft’s Bing.
This pretty much confirms that Google is absolutely feeling the pressure from Bing. The company has never, ever seriously advertised its core search offerings before in this manner.
Did Google need to advertise during the Super Bowl? No, its search product speaks for itself, and that’s the reason Google is so successful. When you have the profits that Google enjoys, why not advertise during the Super Bowl? Plus, as Google itself knows all too well, by advertising on TV after being so against this form of advertising, the online fallout would be huge – with news websites and SEO websites (such as SearchEngineLand) writing about Google, ensuring that even more people see the advert.
Good work SearchEngineLand, you’ve played right into Google’s hands!
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As far as Google’s core brand value is concerned, it is head and shoulders above Bing, and I think it would take a while for someone to start saying “I’ll Bing that restaurant” than “I’ll Google it”. The ad in itself was still great and simplistic though.
So simplistic, in fact, it exposes itself to parody rather easily. For example, I thought the one at was pretty good. There are more, but this one actually looks/sound like the real commercial! 🙂
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