Google's Super Bowl Ad

Google's search engine didn't become popular because of advertising. Many people liked that it returned relevant results, it was fast and had a simple interface, so they told their friends to try it.

Google rarely used traditional advertising to promote its products, but that started to change in 2007, when Google used billboards to promote GOOG-411. Last year, Google aggressively promoted Chrome using flashy ads.

Despite the noticeable cultural shift, it's still surprising to see that Google decided to promote its search engine at the Super Bowl.

"If you watched the Super Bowl this evening you'll have seen a video from Google called "Parisian Love". In fact you might have watched it before, because it's been on YouTube for over three months. We didn't set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search. 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," explains Eric Schmidt.

Google's CEO mentioned in a Twitter message that someone told him: "Hell has indeed frozen over." This is Google's first Super Bowl ad: