08 February 2010

Google Runs Television Ad During Super Bowl

Bloomberg

Google Inc., the world’s most popular search engine, ran a minute-long commercial during the Super Bowl, marking a rare use of TV advertising for the company.

The ad demonstrated features of the company’s search engine, including its translation functions. The commercial, called “Parisian Love,” showed an Internet user relying on Google to court someone in France.



Google hasn’t typically relied on television ads to publicize its products, though it did use TV to promote its Chrome Web browser last year. Those commercials, which were developed by Google’s Japanese employees, first aired on the YouTube video site. The Super Bowl commercial had a similar origin: It was part of a series of videos that ran on YouTube for more than three months.

“We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search,” Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said in a blog posting yesterday. “Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact. But we liked this video so much, and it’s had such a positive reaction on YouTube, that we decided to share it with a wider audience.”

Schmidt signaled that the Super Bowl commercial was coming last week, saying in a Twitter update that he couldn’t wait to watch the game. “Be sure to watch the ads in the third quarter,” he said.

The Super Bowl, held at the Sun Life Stadium in Miami, pitted the Indianapolis Colts against the New Orleans Saints for the National Football League championship. The Saints won 31-17.

CBS Corp., which broadcast the game, said the cost of some of the Super Bowl ads exceeded $3 million for a 30-second spot. The game drew an estimated 106.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in U.S. television history, according to Nielsen Co.

Google rose $2.18 to $533.47 at 4 p.m. New York time on the Nasdaq Stock Market. The shares have fallen 14 percent this year.

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