14 DAY TRIAL // Google has traditionally spent very little on advertising. Surprising perhaps for an advertising company, but Google has mostly relied on word-of-mouth and, more recently, on plugging its newer products in its more popular ones. In the early days, Google Chrome was promoted on YouTube with a link and an invitation to 'try a new browser.' That thinking is gone, Google is spending more on ads and is more focused on traditional media as well.
The latest ads for Google Chrome seem to be supporting that, in the vein of previous video ads for the browser, the two new clips show off some of the features Google Chrome has gained lately, namely extensions and integrated translation.
The first clip highlights Google Chrome extensions that only landed in the stable version a couple of months back. Extensions, as the name implies, are third-party tools that enable users to bolt on functionality to the browser.
The ad illustrates this perfectly by showcasing several use cases and the extensions that would cater to them. But instead of showing a demo or a high-tech metaphor, the clip uses decidedly analogue means of conveying this. The mood is set by the music chosen for the ad, Fats Waller's (Do You Intend to Put an End to) A Sweet Beginning?, a 1930's jazz tune.
The video is brilliant in its simplicity and in the way it portraits the ideas behind a feature rather than the actual implementation, for example, actual bookmarks pulled by a hamster in a wheel to symbolize bookmark syncing between two browsers. Of course bookmark sharing has become very much a part of the browser by now and not an extension, but we'll let this one slide.
The second video is shorter, but the execution is the same. It highlights Chrome's integrated translation technologies, which allow you to translate any page on the web with just one click. A nice touch are the 'people' working behind the scenes translating the words. It's a bit ironic, of course, since no humans are actively involved in Google's machine translation technologies.