One of the biggest arguments for encouraging businesses to invest in social media marketing is that they’ll be able to monitor what customers are saying about their brand, guide the conversations, address issues that arise, and generally be more in-tune with how their brand is perceived. Regardless of whether or not you currently use social media to market your business, there’s a pretty good chance that you’ve been touched by a company’s social media monitoring efforts. Well, provided you were one of the over 100 million people who tuned in to the Super Bowl on Sunday to watch the ads as well as the game, that is.

The ad in question wafted onto the TV screen during the third quarter, it lasted a warm and fuzzy minute, and then it faded to black. The ad was from Google, but it wasn’t hawking Google Chrome or Google Android or Google ISP or any of the other new products and services that keep cropping up in the Google-verse. Nope, the ad featured the most basic Google service of all—its search engine:



The ad (called “Parisian Love”) was certainly a hit—a number of outlets have reported that it was one of the most talked-about ads of Super Bowl XLIV —but it also left many people scratching their heads. Google never advertises on TV, why would they spend $6 million to start now? Does Google feel threatened by Bing? Who hasn’t heard of Google search? (To be fair, though, everyone’s heard of Budweiser too, yet we still see their Clydesdales prance through every single Super Bowl.) 

"Parisian Love" wasn’t actually intended to attract the Super Bowl audience to the search engine that made Google famous and still brings in nearly all of its revenue. In fact, the ad wasn’t originally intended to air during the Super Bowl at all. It was created by Google’s creative team and posted to Google’s YouTube channel almost three months ago as one in a series of promotional “Search Stories” videos. The purpose of these videos is not to promote a Google service, but rather to contribute to Google’s “don’t be evil” image. 

According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt , “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,” said Schmidt. In other words, Google’s monitoring efforts directly influenced their Super Bowl presence. Google could have chosen to remain off-air, they could have put that $6 million toward something else, but when you already know your ad’s a winner (a luxury most other Super Bowl advertisers don’t have. Ahem, Taco Bell.) heck, what’s $6 mil?

And judging by "Parisian Love"’s reported popularity, I think I can safely speak for much of the Super Bowl audience when I say that when that familiar search bar popped up on our TV screens, we put down our buffalo wings and our tasty beverages, we watched, we smiled, and when the “Search On” tag line popped up we sighed, “Well gee wiz, Google! That was an unexpected treat! I wonder if I have any new e-mail.” If you’re already sure that your ad is going to illicit nearly 100 million responses like that, well, what’s $6 mil indeed!