Let’s look at the facts:

Super Bowl 44 provided sports fans what they expected.  Sunday February 7th gave viewers nail biting sports drama, nostalgic music, and a line up of commercials for all to enjoy.  One of those commercials was the first Super Bowl commercial ever produced by Google.  Upon its airing, Twitter lit up with energy and the blogosphere proclaimed that Google had produced the greatest commercial of Super Bowl 44.  The problem is that Google failed America.  Here’s why.

Google dominates the Internet.  So much so that they can actually entertain an action that no American business has ever considered–pulling out China.  While Americans are being displaced from their homes in the largest foreclosure market to hit the United States in decades and small business owners struggle to operate in the worst credit conditions since The Great Depression, Google employees are bathing in stock options and bonuses that were last seen in the dot.com bubble.  Don’t get me wrong as I think it is great that Google is doing well as a business and that the careers of their employees are secure.  Still, when you decide to spend 2.6 million dollars, you would think that Google would make some sort of attempt to connect with the reality in this country.  It is a Web 2.0 kind of thing to do.

Google’s Super Bowl ad accomplished the equivalent of a “How To Use Google” in the context of finding services in Paris, France.  Let’s work through the facts again:

  • Paris has nothing to do with the Super Bowl and Americans really can’t afford to go Paris this year.
  • People use Google by default and with suggested search they need no additional help
  • At .44 cents per stamp, Google sent letters to every small business in the country trying to explain their Local Business service.

Let’s skip forward to the last point.  Google had the opportunity to highlight its Local Business service during Super Bowl 44.  The 2.6 million dollars it would have cost to accomplish this would have been a fraction of the price tag it cost to “snail mail” letters to every small business owner in the United States.  In doing so, they could have inspired small business owners to update their listings and at the same time educated consumers as to how to search for local services.  They could have also focused on searches, products, and services that were relevant to the Super Bowl’s host city Miami.

The Super Bowl has historically been the advertising platform for advertisers to mark their place in brand and creative history.  With a brand that is as solid as “Kleenex” and creative that is becoming of a company full of mathematicians, one has to ask what Google’s Super Bowl 44 advertisement accomplished.  A naysayer would quickly point out that they are filthy rich and that 2.6 million dollars is a drop in the bucket.  My response would be that their approach was very Web 1.0.  Google shouted at people versus providing them with information that they needed.  Somewhere in New Orleans there is a small family owned business who is faced with an invoice from a telephone company who is trying to impress upon them that the phone book is their avenue to connecting with customers.  In their Sunday afternoon attempt to take a break from the reality of business in a tanking economy, Google could have provided them with insight that could have changed their small business course tomorrow morning.

Google Marketing, you failed America on February 7, 2010.