How Googly Are You?

Google has managed to become more than just a company. Google has become a lifestyle. The general population may argue, Google is just a search engine, or an email provider, but dig deeper and you will find Google is embedded all around us. Their product range varies from personal calendars to self driving cars. Google’s new ad campaign focuses on how much we rely on Google for everyday questions and answers. They call it the Google Search campaign. Each ad in the campaign explores different aspects of people’s lives and how google has been a part of those experiences. One of their most watched commercials is their Google “Grads” ad. This ad focuses primarily on the high school career of students, from both the academic and social perspective. Google progresses from the first day of freshman year to graduation day. This commercial related to thousands of students across the country, and Google was able to achieve this through various forms of rhetorical persuasion.

Google’s best move was the time of their release or their kairos. Google released their video on May 20, 2014. This was about a month before most high school seniors were graduating. Google could not have picked a more opportune time to release this video. Most seniors are becoming nostalgic about their past four years in high school at the time around graduation. Google picked up on this and published a commercial that would not only pull at the heart strings of students, but also teachers and parents. The kairos brought about the discussion of graduation and high school accomplishments. Students became emotionally invested in the conversations surrounding their future, and Google was now a part of that conversation. Google found a way to become more personal and they did at the exact right time. Therefore, their commercial was watched by over 4 million people on YouTube, not to mention the countless times it played on every television station until the end of July when the nostalgia of high school finally started wearing off.

The time of release of this commercial was superb, however if it were not for the actual content, the commercial would not have the impact it had. Google greatly used pathos to grab the attention of their audience. The video starts off with the nervousness of a freshman about to start school. Any student can relate to that first day of starting at a new school. Google encompasses that feeling through the compilation of students picking out outfits, working at their locker combination, and meeting their new teachers. Every girl has spent countless hours putting together the perfect first day outfit, it’s a memory that invokes years of anxiety, thrill, and joy of being back with friends. As the video progresses, viewers see students participating in different activities such as band, robotics club, and the junior military academy. Google knows students will think of all the sleepless nights and early morning band practices they muddled through, when they watch a clip of a girl complaining about her workload or a band practicing on the football field.  Google has produced a reflection of their consumers to make the consumers feel more at ease with their label.  In using this strategy, they have their consumers emotionally attached to the video, which makes the commercial a personal token instead of just another plea for attention.

The use of commonplaces in the video further the consumer’s interest in Google. The company uses the significance of life events to connect with the consumer. The most important being receiving a license to drive. Teenagers mark that event as the first milestone of independence. It is a universal idea that someone who knows how to drive, has reached a mature point in their life. Google highlights the excitement and pride teens show after receiving their license, yet again igniting the excitement of all the viewers sitting at home watching. Braces have become the signal of perfect teeth. Almost every child who could afford even the thought of getting braces, had them. The more significant part was the great reveal, when the teeth were all finally perfectly lined up. Google takes advantage of that feeling of relief and reminds students of the time they went to get their braces removed. They are calling out to the community of young adults to reach back and remember their past, because Google had to be involved at some point during that process.

Google has folded in ideologies of the American mind in their ad to further support their product. The two main ones identified are the idea of the perfect prom and the impressive graduation. Here in the United States, prom is not just another dance. Prom is the last hurrah, the last chance to prove yourself to your peers. Prom has become the dance where each person is allowed to be special and pretty. Google wants to make you feel pretty and special, so they can’t leave out the one day that reflects those exact qualities. The other significant ideology is the picture of a student receiving their diploma in their cap and gown. The image that follows that is the image of a college acceptance letter and plenty of loud screams for accompaniment. Google checks all those points with the last part of their video. They play out several students exclaiming their overwhelming joy of being accepted into college. Some of the students are surrounded by their families, other students are filmed by their parents, while other look up how far their new home is located. This is all followed by several graduation caps being thrown in the air, marking the end of one chapter and the search of another. Google cleverly ends the video with the phrase Search On. They have taken the American ideologies and created a commercial that fits into the boundaries of those ideologies.

Google has produced a very successful commercial with their emotional play on consumers’ hearts. In fact, it is very noticeable at how little Google actually shows its products,they want to show you more of the clippings from everyday life, so you feel emotionally connected to the video. This works, because as a graduating senior students are thinking about the journey they have taken for the last four years, which encompasses so much of what google shows. If one was to watch this at the end of their senior year, which is when google released the ad, you take a personal interest in the ad and are more likely to incorporate more google into your life. This was a very smart marketing strategy. They also keep it short and simple in the design as to not overwhelm the viewers but enough to still hold a space in our memories. Google has showed the world its great capability to take on almost any project and make it Googly, and in this ad they are forcing us to demonstrate our googliness.