Google, a company that used to pride itself on the fact it never had to advertise, put an ad in the mother-of-all advertising slots: during the Superbowl, the most expensive time you can advertise in television. And this was posted on the official Google blog by the CEO Eric Schmidt, a man that doesn’t all that often post to the company blog.
Why did it break tradition, with this cute emotional-brand-building ad? Because Google now has for the first time a real competitor, in the rising Bing – Microsoft’s rebranded search engine boosted by the $100 million Powerset acquisition. Bing’s search technology may still lag far behind, but it’s certainly ringing a bell on the marketing side and growing quite healthily as a result. And as well all know, the reason we search is less because we think it’s better technology, but more so because of the importance we place on the brand that we feel comfort in.
Google’s ad was cute. But capitalism is all about self-interest, and for the few million Google had to spend on this seemingly non-informative ad, what management are thinking is quite clear to me. That being, Google’s trying to revamp the emotional attachment we have with the world’s most loved brand. But more tellingly, from the very top, Google’s scared as hell and is now protecting what they know matters the most in the search engine wars: the emotional connection to a brand.
