Google Runs 1st Super Bowl Ad

After countless rumors and one coy tweet, Google aired its first Super Bowl ad tonight. The spot, "Parisian Love," traces a romance through search queries and results, beginning with "study abroad paris france" and ending with "how to assemble a crib." CEO Eric Schmidt hinted on Twitter yesterday that a spot was in the works; the one that aired has been online for several months and had over a million hits even before its TV debut.

The ad buy "was an unexpected move by the search giant which has eschewed advertising even as competitors Microsoft and Yahoo have spent 10s of millions of dollars to compete with the company that retains a search market share that exceeds 70%," notes John C Abell of Wired.
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