There's a long history/tradition of Google not advertising its main search product, but rather making the product good enough that it sells itself via word-of-mouth.
- Jim Norris
Are you faulting Google the advertising company for running ads?
- Hayes Haugen
Say what you will about whether Google should be advertising or not, but didn't that ad just make you smile? Maybe it struck me because it somewhat resembled my own experience, but I thought it was beautifully simple.
- Joel Webber
I thought that the ad was fantastic. In fact, I'm definitely in the camp of "it's so good that showing it to a large audience outweighs any long-standing policy of not advertising on TV." Yes, that good. Geoff, I'm surprised that you're reading that much into it. Especially since companies have been advertising since there were companies.
- Chieze Okoye
Like maybe if you have enough money for a Super Bowl Ad a nice fat shareholder dividend be in order
- WarLord
To be fair, if an advertisement costs $X, and produces greater than $X in additional profit (without harming the brand), and assuming a good cash position (which Google has), then it makes sense to run the ad regardless of other possible innovations, dividends, etc. (because there isn't actually a tradeoff -- you can do both)
- Paul Buchheit
As long as I will keep reminding friends and colleagues to google before they ask, I consider that Google should be advertised with even more intensity!
- philos