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Media Shower writer Terrell Newbill is well-known for his work in technology, business, and marketing.
During the 2010 Super Bowl, Google released an ad that was equal parts heartwarming and ingenious. The ad, titled “Parisian Love” told a love story set in Paris through a series of Google searches. While this ad was used to kick off a campaign entitled “Google Search Stories” and even gave users the chance to create their own, nothing captures the concept as beautifully or simply as the original. In fact, anyone doing any sort of marketing stands to learn a lot by studying this simple ad. Here are 2 big lessons marketers should take away from this ad.
Emotion is Just As Important As Information
Some copywriters think that when a product is something that’s simply functional or “boring” all they have to do is provide as much information about the product as possible and that this will lead to sales. However, finding an emotional hook is just as important for products that don’t lend themselves to that sort of marketing. Finding a way to turn something as mundane as a search engine into a lens to view life and tell a love story is a genius move on the part of the Google team.
In fact, a study by Anna S. Mattila that appeared in The International Journal of Service Management in 1999 confirmed this by studying whether price and product information or emotional appeals were more effective in marketing a variety of services, and found that emotional appeals were far more useful. The takeaway from all of this is that when you’re writing, always remember to find a way to appeal to your customer’s emotions.
How your customers’ faces should look after a good emotional appeal.
Showcase Your Product Through Storytelling
The other thing that makes the “Parisian Love” ad so effective is how well it showcases the product. By telling the story strictly through searches, Google found a way to show off their product without being boring or disingenuous. While writers don’t usually have the luxury of video to show off their product, they do have the ability to write in a way that accomplishes the same thing.
Defining and presenting your product’s usefulness is something all copywriters strive for, however it can be taken a step further by finding the core “truth” at the center of your product and putting it on full display. What that means is taking the USP (unique selling proposition) of your product and finding real life examples that illustrate it. In some ways this connects to the previous emotional appeals tip, because it means finding the unique way in which your product fits into your customer’s life. Through your writing, you can showcase your product just as effectively as Google did.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is a lot that can be learned by studying the work of great advertisers. By looking at the “Parisian Love” ad, we see marketing that showcases its product through storytelling while also finding a way to emotionally resonate with its audience. By applying these methods and philosophies to their own work, copywriters can learn a great deal about their craft.
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