WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED?
I'm not talking about on the field. No offense to any Colts fans out there, but the starts aligned and the game ended as it should have.
Geaux Saints! (Get over it. It's an underdog story that turned out the way an underdog story should. I'm sorry you lost money.)
No. What I'm referring to is the meager crop of Super Bowl commercials this year.
There was very little worth talking about.
The Career Builder "Casual Friday" commercial was great for a laugh--and I'd already seen it online several times, so that wasn't much of a surprise.
I will also maintain that as entertaining as it is, it still isn't very good advertising. It describes a problem that's very amusing, then never offers a solution that's anywhere near as engaging as the illustration of the problem. The same creative approach could have been applied to virtually any job search advertiser.
Overall, the commercials for which the advertisers and their agencies spent millions of dollars were weak, unfunny, contrived or, at best, mildly amusing and forgettable.
With one exception.
DO YOU YAHOO?
If so, Google ate your lunch.
Google totally knocked it out of the park. At our house, it was the only commercial that completely engaged the room.
There were six of us watching the game together, and it had been a little frustrating if only because nobody seemed very interested in either the game or the commercials. There was lots of conversation and overtalking about things irrelevant to what was happening onscreen.
Then, the Google commercial came on.
The room went silent.
Everyone was captivated by this spot, waiting to see where it was going to go next.
It didn't use over-the-top comedy, it didn't try for a cheap laugh, it didn't use busty blonde models in tight T-shirts as part of its strategy.
ALL IT DID WAS ENGAGE
For a full minute, the spot forced the audience to stare at the Google logo--in itself an accomplishment.
If you didn't see it, it's a very simple concept. Here's what plays out.
You're looking at the TV as if it were a computer screen. Someone begins a search on Google for, "Study abroad Paris France."
Then they search for "Cafes near the Louvre."
The next search is, "translate tu es tres mignon." (Which, for the record, means "You are very nice.")
Then, search "Impress a French girl."
Followed by, "Chocolate shops Paris," "What are truffles?" and "Who is Truffaut?"
The next search is "Long distance relationship advice," which is deleted and replaced with "Jobs in Paris."
Then, a flight from Paris to New York is tracked, followed by a search for "Churches in Paris."
And the punch line search (SPOILER ALERT--stop here, scroll to the bottom and watch the video first if you'd like to be surprised): "How to assemble a crib."
In 60 seconds (yes, a 60-second spot--enormously expensive, but zero production costs, relatively speaking), Google told an entire story of exotic love, romance and marriage--and the product, Google search, was on screen the entire time as the hero.
THIS IS A DECEPTIVELY BRILLIANT COMMERCIAL
I'm willing to bet that Google gets more traction from that one commercial than Doritos gets from all of theirs, the marginal best of which was, "Pete's Doritos" and the ninja throwing star Dorito of death gag.
I'm a little baffled by this.
It's not unusual that there are a lot of dumb commercials trying too hard in the Super Bowl.
It also stands that there are usually several that really deserve applause.
But this year, overall, the commercial game was weak, uninteresting, vapid, lackluster, insipid, and overall, apathy inducing.
GOOGLE DIDN'T NOT FALL INTO ANY OF THESE CATEGORIES
Google told a story that virtually anyone can be engaged by, and all but the hardest and most cynical of viewers will enjoy.
They told a story in which their product was integral to everything about it, from the launching of an adventure to the first kiss to starting a family.
It was amusing without being filled with cheap laughs.
It was daring by having no production value.
In short, Google has entered the Pantheon of Great Super Bowl Ads that triumph not only as memorable entertainment but as really solid sales messages.
WARNING: YOU CAN ALSO TRY THIS AT HOME
Perhaps most salient, Google demonstrated a model of advertising that, like so many really good ads by enormous companies, can be distilled to an essence that is eminently useable by even the smallest local advertiser.
They've used the oldest and most essential form of good advertising, which predates the practice of actual advertising itself: they've told a story.
See also (for enduring advertising), "They Laughed When I Sat Down At the Piano. But When I Started to Play..." The classic and iconic John Caples ad indeed tells a story, circa 1925.
See also (for enduring pre-advertising), "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." You can be a hardened, dyed-in-the-wool, Richard Dawkins atheist, and still be forced to acknowledge the reality: this and the other stories accompanying it endure and continue to sell.
This has been your annual Monday Morning Advertising Quarterback. So easy for me to say. So hard for anyone to actually do.
For the Google commercial, click here.
For the John Caples piano ad, click here.
For all the Super Bowl commercials from this year, click here
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