The screen shows a single Google search box and nothing else. Someone types a search about studying abroad in Paris, and a story begins to unfold one search at a time. The searches move from simple things like entertainment and cafes to more permanent ones like jobs and a church, and wedding bells are heard. The last search, over the sound of a baby crying, is “how to assemble a crib.”
The spot ran during Super Bowl XLIV in 2010, the game in which the New Orleans Saints beat the Indianapolis Colts 31-17. It was made in-house at Google by a small team known as the “Google 5,” recruited from ad and design schools, rather than by a big agency. In a game full of celebrities and jokes, it had no actors, no voiceover and no slogan, only a search field and soft music.
It worked because the product was the story. Every search showed a small feature of Google in action, and the audience felt what was happening to the character without being told. Comscore, which tests ads for effectiveness, gave it a score of 51, in the top fifth of the more than 8,000 ads it had evaluated, and credited its use of music and its clear demonstration of the product.
The ad was also strategic. Bing was pushing its “decision engine” identity at the time, and Google answered by presenting itself as a warm, trusted friend rather than a machine. “Parisian Love” is still one of the best examples of a tech company making people feel something, and it does it in sixty seconds without a single feature list.
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