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Google Advertise Offline with Parisian Love Super Bowl Ad
Last night’s Super Bowl had surprises on and off the field, as the New Orleans Saints won the coveted prize for the first time in their history against the favoured Indianapolis Colts in a 31-17 thriller.
However, perhaps more surprising than the underdog sporting triumph was that Google had decided to place a minute long advert during the half time coverage, one of the most expensive advertising slots in the world.
The NFL charges an extreme premium for advertising space during the Super Bowl as one of the TV events of the year in the US. 30-second slots were setting advertisers back an astonishing $2.5 million.
The advert in question is a part of a series of short narratives told through the medium of Google’s multi-faceted search facilities and tools. The Parisian Love ad has a special appeal particularly with its close proximity to St Valentine’s Day.
After 23 years of capturing premium spots at the Super Bowl Pepsi announced that they would not advertise at the sporting event, instead focusing more of their budget on online advertising. On the other hand Google, notorious for not promoting themselves through traditional advertising means but allowing their reputation to grow online, placed a minute long ad at this year’s Super Bowl costing an estimated $5 million.
For a company so opposed to offline advertising, the dramatic turnaround from Google has led some commentators to believe the search giant fears the growing competition from its rivals in online search. Danny Sullivan wrote for Search Engine Land: “This pretty much confirms that Google is absolutely feeling the pressure from Bing.”
Google News posted by Scott Tickner on 08 February 2010
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