GOOGLE

The other day, my B-school professor of Business Policy taught us about Defensive Marketing Strategies, a type of marketing warfare strategy designed to protect a company's market share, profitability, product positioning, or mind-share. He mentioned that when companies get to defensive marketing, they start doing things to promote their products which they would have never done in normal circumstances. An example of this would be when the prestigious FMCG giant HUL bought out a whole day's ad slot on all the channels of Star Network, and later repeated the same on Zee Network. HUL had reportedly spent a sum of around 10 crore INR for a single day to buy the 1800 minutes of ad space across all the channels of Star Network. As a result, for that whole day, all Star channels displayed ads of only HUL products like Lifebuoy, Dove, Ponds, etc.

Within a couple of days of that lecture, I came across another example of the same. But this time, it left me flabbergasted. Google, a company that has always believed in product superiority over advertising, entered the domain of broadcast media. The search giant came up with its first ever television commercial during the third quarter of American Super Bowl, the most watched program in US television history.

When I came to know that Google had eventually succumbed to advertising on television, a medium that it had ignored for years, there was a negligible decline in the respect I had for this company. But then I realized I had judged too soon. Although I still disapprove of Google breaking out of its traditional stubbornness for not advertising on television for its search engine, I cannot deny the fact that I applauded loud for the simple genius of this ad. I have to admit, whatever Google does, it does it in style. Following is the ad titled ‘Parisian Love’, created by Google Creative Lab advertising agency and production firm 1^st Ave Machine:

LOOK: The look of this ad comprises of something that I’m sure every single internet user across the world would instantly recognize and connect to, the Google homepage. The whole ad is made on Google itself, and hence would instantly strike a chord with everyone.

CONTENT: This advert features all the various search functions of Google in the simplest and the most effective way possible. The ad shows all the functions that the search giant performs, including maps, flight tracking, spelling correction, dictionary definitions, and its newest development, translation, intertwined into a simple yet sweet love story of an American finding love in Paris.

CASTING: Nil

CONNECT: This ad epitomizes the saying that Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication. The ad is not only a tutorial to those Google users who were either unaware or unacquainted with certain features of Google, but also an interesting synopsis of almost all of Google’s features. I in fact find the ad so efficient and effective that it can easily make Yahoo and Bing devotees give Google a try.

OVERALL RATING: 4.5/5

                In spite of being a brilliant ad in every way possible, I still feel Google could have come up with a better slogan than ‘Search on’, which is the reason why I cut the 0.5 marks even after ranting so much in praise of the ad.

                Google’s entry in TV advertising domain is somewhat suggestive of the heat that Google has started feeling from its rivals Yahoo and Bing. However, considering that fact that Google still holds a humongous 90.5% share in the search engine market as opposed to the 7.8% share of Yahoo and Bing combined, it is too soon for this mammoth to go defensive.

SPOOFS: Be it a movie, a music video, or an ad, spoofs and parodies are always great fun to watch. And if you have already seen Google’s Parisian Love commercial above, you will understand how easy it is to spoof that ad. Here I’m sharing with you people two of the best spoofs of the ad I came across. Don’t miss them, they’re hilarious.