Now that I know my team isn’t in the Superbowl (sad face), I’ll be able to concentrate on many people’s favorite part of the Big Game: EATing. And, of course, the Superbowl commercials.
A clip of Google's Chrome 2011 Superbowl Ad. (Image courtesy of the interwebs.)
One commercial from last year’s Big Game that managed to distract me during the breaks in the action was Google’s “Dear Sophie” ad. It’s a heart-warming story about a dad documenting a whole bunch of memories of his daughter’s special moments growing up. He uses, of course, Google’s Gmail in its “Chrome” internet browser.
The clean aesthetic of the simple font, the close-ups of the words being typed, the video clips of the little kid giggling… they all seem too personal to ignore. How does an entity with more money than God connect with so many millions of us whose lips were quivering at the end of the ad when we saw the letters “L-o-v-e, D-a-d” typed real slow-like and nostalgia-y? How does a giant corporation that possesses an already obscene amount of just about everyone’s personal information convince us that there should be no limit to the juicy little tidbits of our history we share with them?
With a great story, that’s how.
Did I fall for this ad? Head over heels; absolutely. I use Google Chrome, and I love it. Partly because of the ad, and partly because all my techie-geek friends use Chrome. The days of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer – and even Mozilla’s Firefox – are seemingly gone. Loading pages on Chrome compared to either of these top 2 competitors is amazingly quicker. When you search, it almost always knows exactly what you’re looking for before you type two words. This is convenient.
It is also very scary. When I think about all of the information Google must know about me, I shudder. But then I just keep using its products because they’re just so, well, great. And they wouldn’t be able to convince people with cute ads that their stuff is great if it actually isn’t.
So, I look forward to seeing more of the ads that will make me stop dead in my Superbowl snacking tracks and take notice. Will any be worth our time and attention? I guess we’ll have to tune in and find out.
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