In the category of product or service the gold medal goes to Google.
Telling the tale of a relationship through Google searches was a beautiful little piece of storytelling. Google could certainly have spent oodles of money on amazing special effects like a fiddling beaver, or gone for cheap laughs like people getting hit in the crotch –but instead they engaged you (no pun intended) about their product with their product.
Simple? You bet. That they managed to summon up emotion while showing nothing more than text typing on their ubiquitous home page is good stuff. It’s not a new spot, though, but part of their Search Stories campaign that’s been running purely on YouTube.
A lot of spots focused more on entertainment than the product –but Bud Light did a good job doing both with their Asteroid and Stranded commercials. The message: people really love Bud Light. That’s sort of a lie, but hell, it’s advertising.
By the way, I can’t believe GoDaddy got away with this dialog in their stupid commercial:
Danica Patrick: “I really need this…”
Masseuse: “Yeah… you’re so tight.”
I loved this ad right down to when “Louve” was entered incorrectly and Google asked him if he meant “Louvre” (which it does to me often!).