Get your fingers in better shape for Chrome

Are your hands too fat to keep up with Google Chrome? Don't order a typing wand. Get on a Chromercise fitness program, and whip your flabby fingers back into shape. Or you can just get some of those snazzy workout gloves, it's up to you. This whole idea—rolled out Friday by BBH New York for April Fools' Day—was probably funnier on paper, and it goes on a bit too long, but credit where it's due for committing to the concept. Plus, it wouldn't surprise me if hand models actually did stuff like this, so it might be more legitimate than it appears.

Filed under April Fool's, BBH, Chrome, Google, Kiefaber
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DuckDuckGo's searches are the anti-Google

Google's tiny, pugnacious search rival DuckDuckGo is using advertising to warn people about advertising. It bought a billboard in L.A. for a cool $7,000 and posted this anatidaephobic ad that says, "Google tracks you. We don't." The issue, says DuckDuckGo founder, coder and sole employee Gabriel Weinberg, is that Google sends along your search query to the sites you visit. That means advertisers and other unsavory people will know you got there by searching "transvestite cuties." I use that example because I'm guessing the objection is that amoral advertisers could find out about your penchants and use them against you. Sometimes I think people overestimate how much marketers and advertisers care about their personal lives. I'm not saying they don't care. It's just that they care about really specific things, which, in the case of all the brands I know, aren't salacious or even mildly interesting to anyone else. Besides, Google only sends information about the specific search that led you a site. You can type "goat sex" 80 times into Google, but when you search for "cool watches" and land on Tokyo Flash's site, Google only tells Tokyo Flash that you searched for "cool watches." It doesn't mention goat sex or that other search you did on monkeys who drink their own pee. And even if it did, Tokyo Flash won't embarrass you by buying up BillHendersonLikesGoatSex.com. Still, DuckDuckGo's queries have jumped to about 5 million a month after getting some attention for its lack of tracking. Can somebody please tell America that advertisers don't wake up in the morning and perv-search terms in order to start some office betting pool on who you'll be dating next? That's what Mark Zuckerberg does.

Filed under DuckDuckGo, Google, Search
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Google brings world's great artworks to you

Google sure is currying favor with creative agencies lately. It has gotten many shops to do projects showing off its vast array of products and technologies. The latest is a very cool site from WPP's Schematic called Art Project. It's a stunning site that uses Google's Street View, Scholar, Picasa and other products to give visitors a virtual walking tour of 17 museums around the world and 1,000 pieces of art. It's a pretty sweet site that delivers on Google's mission of making the world's information universally accessible. (Of course, whether seeing the world's great art on a computer screen is a decent substitute for seeing it in person is up for debate.) Google's done a bunch of projects in this show-don't-tell mode of marketing, including the Chrome Speed Test (BBH) and The Wilderness Downtown (B-Reel, @radical.media and others).

Filed under Arts, Google, Morrissey, Schematic
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2010's top Web site: 'Wilderness Downtown'

There's a certain irony in the fact that the FWAs—originally founded to celebrate Flash Web sites—has chosen a site built in Flash rival HTML5 as the best site of 2010. Now called the Favourite Website Awards, the group has given its top honor to "The Wilderness Downtown," a collaboration among Chris Milk, Aaron Koblin, Google Creative Lab, B-Reel and @radical.media. The interactive music video for Arcade Fire's "We Used to Wait" shows off a few Google products, including its browser and satellite mapping. The experience has you enter in your hometown address, which it uses to construct a personalized video splicing together windows of film with shots of your home. The judges lauded "The Wilderness Downtown" for straddling the line between technical pizzazz with good old-fashioned emotional storytelling.

Filed under FWA, Google, Morrissey
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Google honors failure on AdWords birthday

Google is a big believer in the Silicon Valley trope that failure is essential to success. So, AKQA and production company Post Panic made comical, overreaching failure the central theme of this video it created for Google to celebrate the 10th anniversary of its AdWords ad system. The video shows Google scientist types devising several outlandish projects to honor AdWords advertisers, such as using thousands of remote-controlled insects to write names in the sky. It ends with Google svp of product management Susan Wojcicki deciding to skip high-tech schemes in favor of a personal thank-you from Googlers in offices across the globe. It's interesting to see how Google dabbles with various agencies for its increasing marketing efforts. One can only imagine the clamor if a Google AOR RFP were to ever materialize. It would make the Zappos process look downright dignified.

Filed under AKQA, Google, Morrissey, Post Panic
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Not even epic annihilation can stop Chrome

To illustrate its new Chrome operating system, Google created the gleefully destructive yet informative video below. Chrome staffer Glen Murphy walks you through the features of the Chrome notebook, the first device to use the new OS. Namely, he illustrates how all of your work is stored online, essentially in real time, meaning you never have to worry about data being lost in the event of a falling gnome, flash freeze or blazing inferno. Just to be safe, you probably shouldn't spend too much time hanging around Glen.

Filed under Chrome, Google, Griner
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Google Zeitgeist year in review put to video

Everyone loves Google Zeitgeist, the annual year-in-review feature that determines the biggest stories of the year based on the most popular search terms typed into the world's biggest search engine. Now, it's even more fun—with video. Maybe fun isn't the word, as the BP oil spill and Justin Bieber both easily make the cut. But the aggregation of billions of search queries can't be wrong!

Filed under Google, Nudd
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Google Nexus S ad not for weak of stomach

Those prone to motion sickness would be best to avoid this mildly nauseating new spot for Google's Nexus S phone from San Francisco agency Muhtayzik-Hoffer. If nothing else, this phone apparently causes you to look down all the time, absorbed in the device—something Microsoft has famously been campaigning against in its work for the Windows 7 phone. Hopefully this spot will remain online and not be inflicted on, in particular, cinema audiences.

Filed under Google, Muhtayzik-Hoffer, Nudd, Telecom
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Google Goggles test-ogles 5 big advertisers

Google is already training its brand-new Goggles image-recognition app on advertisers, hoping the software's "visual search" capabilities prove useful in helping customers glean more information from print and outdoor ads, among other media. Five top marketers—Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines—have signed up to experiment with Goggles. Each has embedded the Goggles symbol in ads, allowing people who are running the app on Android phones to snap photos of the ads and then click through to mobile properties associated with them. Watch the video below to see how it works. The app, which is still rudimentary, certainly seems to hold promise, though of course it's a shame you don't get to wear actual goggles.

Filed under Google, Nudd
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Google Mobile locates lots and lots of pizza

Google Mobile's voice-activated search feature is pretty nifty, but not even its technology can sustain 10 minutes of a guy repeating "pizza" while wacky backgrounds cycle behind him. Even Seth MacFarlane would have balked at that much repetition. If they'd faded out to their logo screen after maybe 45 seconds, with a short return to end the spot, we'd have gotten the same idea. And for what it's worth, there are two pizza places within two miles of Mount Rushmore.

Filed under Google, Kiefaber
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Dylan's lyrics give Google Instant a workout

Google put together this video demonstrating its new Google Instant results-as-you-type feature. It uses Bob Dylan's old promo clip for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," where he holds up flash cards with words and phrases from the song. That footage is intercut with instant searches using the song's lyrics. The song begins, "Johnny's in the basement ..." In the search results, Johnny Depp precedes Johnny Cash, proving there's just no justice in the universe. And just try typing "Ju…" Justin Bieber! No justice at all.

Filed under Celebrity endorsements, Gianatasio, Google
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Droid 2 also quite hazardous to human flesh

Fears that the Droid 2 won't be shoved down our throats as far as the Droid X was have been eased. A big push for Droid 2 is planned, and this ad from mcgarrybowen hints at what's to come. Droid advertising is certainly high on special effects—the ads could be mistaken for movie previews until Verizon, Google and Motorola's names come up—and the visuals are impressing people. For now. Another three or four straight months of watching Droids turn white people into robots could wear thin, ya know? Plus, I think it's telling how much these ads harp on about how much work the Droid helps you get done. Does anyone want to be connected to their work e-mail all the time? Exactly. UPDATE: Plus, the phone itself, released last week, supposedly sucks.

Filed under Google, Kiefaber, mcgarrybowen, Motorola, Telecom, Verizon
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Google sparks new generation of Pac-Mania

North American productivity has ground to a halt today, thanks to the first-ever "playable doodle" on Google's homepage. To honor Pac-Man's 30th anniversary, Google has created an in-browser version of the arcade classic. Clicking "Insert Coin" starts a one-player game; clicking it twice adds Ms. Pac-Man (controlled with A, W, S and D) for a local multiplayer game. Google developer Marcin Wichary says despite the customized gameboard, this version is lovingly accurate: "Google doodler Ryan Germick and I made sure to include Pac-Man's original game logic, graphics and sounds, bring back ghosts' individual personalities, and even recreate original bugs from this 1980s masterpiece." The game will be active for 48 hours, so until Sunday morning. What game should Google feature next? I'm voting Elevator Action.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Google, Griner, Video games
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Explore the surreal world of Google Chrome

From the earliest days of Chrome, Google has found some incredible ways to visualize its browser without actually showing you the browser. Some of the most stellar work has come from BBH London, which created a surreal series of shorts late last year and has returned with the painstakingly crafted spot below for Google Chrome Extensions. Whenever I see an ad like this, I assume half the visual-arts majors in the world will forward it to their parents to prove that they might actually find a paying job someday. Via Edward Boches.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under BBH, Chrome, Google, Griner
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Tiger Woods' redemption, as told by Google

Google has introduced a new tool, the Search Stories Video Creator, that lets you make your own Search Story in the vein of the popular "Parisian Love" ad. You enter up to seven search queries, and Google generates a video, with music. Obviously, we had to make our own Tiger Woods spot. Let me just say that telling a coherent story through search-engine queries is harder than it looks.

—Posted by David Kiefaber

Filed under Google, Kiefaber
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Google's Super Bowl ad proves spoof-errific

Nowadays, it's a pretty big compliment when someone spoofs your TV spot. The Web is full of takes on Apple's "Get a Mac" spots. Well, make room for imitators of Google's "Parisian Love" spot, which tells a sweet story of romance through Internet searches. The ad has been online for months—and back in December spawned a Tiger Woods-themed parody, courtesy of Slate. Now, Upright Citizens Brigade has its own version (below), in which it sticks to Parisian love-story concept, but with the romance gone awry. With other imitators sure to follow, it appears Adweek critic Barbara Lippert was quite right that Google knocked the cover off the ball with its spot. UPDATE: Here's another amusing spoof, focusing on Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Google, Morrissey, Parody
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Jon Bond gives TV-ads-for-dummies lesson

Who wants a TV spot? Jon Bond of Kirshenbaum Bond Senecal + Partners is here to help you with a how-to spot he shot for Google aimed at small businesses that are itching to get their own spiffy TV spot. The video is meant to draw those businesses into Google TV Ads, the company's effort to make a dent in the TV market with targeted spots. Bond, described in the clip simply as "famous ad man," helpfully breaks down the commercial process into "five easy steps." The video runs through the basics of figuring out the target audience, differentiators, brand personality, calls to action and the ins and outs of actually shooting. Bond dons sunglasses with the backdrop of the Hollywood sign to address creative matters. It's interesting to see that Madison Avenue isn't as scared of Google as it was a couple of years ago, when Ogilvy's Andy Berndt defected there. Bond's infomercial is a nice primer for the tens of thousands of businesses that don't advertise on TV but probably could without breaking the bank. I only hope it leads to more awesome local TV spots like the "Ooh girl" Carmel car-service ladies.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

Filed under Google, Kirshenbaum Bond, Morrissey
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Philip K. Dick estate paranoid about Google

In what would be a milestone for any evil, monopolistic corporation, Google has earned the official disapproval of Philip K. Dick—or at least, the estate of the long-dead sci-fi author. The point of contention: Google's new Nexus One smartphone, whose name, says the Dick estate, was stolen from the Nexus-6 cyborgs of Dick's 1968 novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which the classic '80s film Blade Runner was based. Google denies this. Hmmm … what are they trying to hide? If this were one of the author's mind-bending tales, layers of false reality would be stripped away to reveal that the Nexus One is really just an iPhone inside, and that Google's market-dominating search capabilities have been powered by Yahoo! all along. Alas, this is the real world, and that won't happen. Still, the flap is raising the late novelist's Google search rankings—an ironic twist true to the spirit of the author's work.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Controversy, Gianatasio, Google, Telecom
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Google on fence about making black friends

Google has posted some new ads online called "Search Stories," which cleverly tell people's stories through only their Google searches. The "Parisian Love" posted below is particularly nice—simple, touching and a whole lot more enjoyable than the Bing search-overload ads. But they seem to have run into a problem with the approach. If you look closely, you'll notice that some of the search suggestions that appear while the person types (which can be notoriously bizarre) have been edited out. In this ad, for example, they've gotten rid of the "making friends with black people" option. Above, you can compare the suggestions from Google.com and from the ad. Hey, what's wrong with making friends with black people?

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Google, Nudd, Search
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Google Maps photographer is a horrible job

This is a bit off-topic, but good for a laugh: two guys slowly going insane while photographing the world for Google Maps. The video uses actual Street View images for the animated backgrounds, which is cool. No wonder Google hires little robotic Wall-E types to do this job. Via Neatorama.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Previously on AdFreak:
Give Google's street-view maker a little hug

Filed under Google, Nudd
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Give Google's street-view maker a little hug

Google Japan put together this animated video to show how the street view works on Google Maps, apparently on the assumption that there's nothing quite like a Wall-E-style character to ease the fears of people worried about privacy. (The clip shows the machine dutifully responding to feedback and working late into the night to blur out license-plate numbers and names on mailboxes.) There's no sign of an animated Phillip Garrido, either. Also, check out this awesome gallery of Google street-view pics on Art Fag City. Via Boing Boing and The Denver Egotist.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

See also:
Google puts kodachrome in new Chrome ad

Filed under Google, Japan, Nudd
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Google shows you how to sell that pet stick

When I saw the little pair of googly eyes attached to the stick, I thought Google was trying to get into the car insurance business. But it turns out the truth is just as weird: Google is marketing to advertisers by giving a case study of how one might sell a pet stick. Over at the slimmed-down site, you can follow the case study through a chain of magical interlocking impact circles. They claim they chose the pet stick because it's "virtually unsellable" (though Ren and Stimpy already managed it brilliantly, and we all know how well the pet rock did). I would have given them more kudos if they had actually set up the pet-stick site and all the goodies Google promised. But what really concerns me is: How did Geico manage to completely own the notion of attaching googly eyes to an inanimate object so quickly that I can't think of anything else when I look at that stick?

—Posted by Rebecca Cullers

Filed under Cullers, Geico, Google
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Google tackles a new market with old media

It's telling and rather ironic that Google's first TV commercials support its 9-month-old Chrome, last spotted battling Opera for market share at the ass end of the Web-browser wars. For all that's been said about the Big G's "natural monopoly" in search, companies must adapt, grow and diversify to thrive. No monopoly lasts forever. Just ask AT&T. Eventually, Yahoo!, MSN or—more likely—some service being dreamed up now in a dorm room somewhere will supplant Google at the top of the search heap. No product stays No. 1 for all time. Just ask Netscape. Or Friendster. Or MySpace. Google will need new and vital offerings to keep itself at the forefront. One or two successful extensions might be enough. Just ask Apple. Ultimately, Google's foray into old-school mass media to tout Chrome underscores that the firm is neither evil nor omniscient. It's just another company, on top now but pressured by other search firms, social media and government regulators. Chrome's launch and the subsequent ad play can be interpreted as the company asking itself, "For Google, what comes next?" That's the right question, but it ranks among the few the company's iconic search window can't answer for certain.

—Posted by David Gianatasio

Filed under Gianatasio, Google, Japan
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Google puts kodachrome in new Chrome ad

Motion Theory created this fun, stylistic spot for Google's Web browser, Chrome. Google doesn't put out much in the way of self-promotional advertising, so it's always nice to see what happens when they do. The spot is actually one of 11 short videos Google commissioned to advertise Chrome. The batch also includes the one below, by Christoph Niemann. The foot-tapping tune in the spot above is "The Lucky Ones" by Tim Myers. The song was also used in one of those Canadian Lay's spot from Juniper Park earlier this year, and featured in an Ugly Betty episode. Another track by Myers popped up last year in an ad for the Saturn Aura.

—Posted by David Griner

Filed under Google, Griner, Motion Theory, Search
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Google's TV-ad system: everyone's a player

Valleywag has the story of Ariel Schneller, a 24-year-old Internet poker player who placed the homemade commercial above, which advertises his FoxwoodsFiend.com blog, in front of 330,000 Dish subscribers for just $500, thanks to Google's nascent TV-ad-buying program. Schneller explains that his roommate works for Google in its ads division and tipped him off to how easy the whole process could be. "It's half egomania and half dedication to comedy," he says of the commercial, which ran on Oxygen, ESPN2, and WPT. Maybe slightly more of the former than the latter.

—Posted by Tim Nudd

Filed under Consumer stunts, Google, Nudd
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