Google's First Google+ TV Ad Doesn't, Like, Hit the Mark

Google hasn't done much advertising and hardly has any TV ads, but that is changing slowly. As the company grows, it is more confident in running TV spots or perhaps less confident in the power of its products to speak for themselves.

Whatever the case, Google has just run its first Google+ TV commercial, as far as anyone can tell. The ad, called "Sharing but like real life," focuses on what makes Google+ special, the circles, meaning a more elaborate social graph, and Hangouts.

The actual ad doesn't really focus on the product, but on the human side instead. That makes some sense and that has been Google's approach to ads, especially TV ads, for the past couple of years at least.

Google's search stories, including the first TV spot Google aired, Parisian Love, didn't really talk about the search engine, but rather about what people found it useful for.

More recent ads, like the one for Gmail/Google Chrome/Google and the web at large, Dear Sophie, had a very similar approach. The browser was featured in the video, but there were no mentions of it in the narration. The 'story' focused entirely on the human side.

Which is a great approach, especially for Google, which has had an air of disconnection from its users. Hard, cold engineering isn't very appealing to most people. Technology isn't very appealing in itself, except for those who understand it, but for what it can do.

But this works for existing, established products. Everyone knew and had used Google Search when the first TV ad aired. Everyone knew what Gmail was and had used at least one webmail client. People may not have used Google Chrome, but they knew what a browser was.

With the Google+ ad, if you don't already know what it is, it's easy to miss the point entirely. Everyone uses Facebook of course, but it's not extremely evident from the Google+ that it's a Facebook competitor.

The fact that the ad aired on Thanksgiving during the Lions, Packers NFL game only made it even easier to ignore. Also, continuing Google's previous moves, the ad is also somewhat recycled, as you can see from the second video below.