Google Just Made The Ad Of The Decade
This year, there have been dramatic, last-minute changes to Super Bowl advertising. One notable example of an ad that was pulled is the Planters ad wher...
This year, there have been dramatic, last-minute changes to Super Bowl advertising. Planters pulled their Mr. Peanut death spot outright -- bad timing, given the news cycle that week. Nobody plans for real tragedy to collide with a joke about a mascot dying.
But an ad that isn't getting pulled -- one produced by Google, in-house, with no outside agency -- is one of the most brilliant ads I've seen in my 40 years doing this. Not "brilliant for a tech company." Brilliant, period.
It's the perfect example of why I tell every business owner, big or small, myself included: you need to own your creative production, or at minimum understand it well enough that nobody can hand you a watered-down version of your own story. You don't need a full crew on staff. But you do need to be the one steering the ship, because you're the only one who actually knows your brand, your customers, and the story that connects them. I've written somewhere north of 100,000 ads and produced work for nine Super Bowls, and I can tell you: the ones that work aren't the ones with the biggest budget. They're the ones where the story never got diluted by too many hands. Google hit a home run here, and it's worth studying exactly why.
Why This Ad Caught Me Completely Off Guard
Before I show you this ad, a little context: we all know what we're going to get from Budweiser (Clydesdales and cute dogs). We knew what we were getting from Planters this year (the controversial demise of Mr. Peanut). We know what a GoDaddy Super Bowl spot looks like -- can you say "salacious"? Every one of those brands has built a predictable formula, and predictable formulas are safe but rarely move anybody. This Google ad broke the pattern entirely, and that's exactly why it caught me off guard.
This morning I was in bed, flipping through an Ad Age piece on my phone, drinking my coffee quietly so I wouldn't wake my wife. And then, out of nowhere, I'm crying. Tears streaming down my face, over an ad from a search engine company.
This ad hit me hard, and here's the craft reason why: you never see the narrator. Not once. Google made the bet that a voice alone, paired with search queries and photos, could carry the entire emotional arc -- no actor, no set, no dialogue between characters. That's a genuinely risky structural choice, and it's the kind of restraint most brands don't have the discipline to pull off. It was simple, beautiful, and so deeply emotional that I shared it in the office with Meaghan from my leadership team before I'd even finished my coffee.
Even My Team Ugly Cried
Here's what she had to say,
"Do you want me to talk about how I cried at work today? Okay. So, I watched the Google Super Bowl ad and I cried at work. I think I cried as much as when someone showed me the new James Blunt music video (Monsters) about how his dad is dying and then it zooms out and there his dad is, sitting next to him. So, the Google ad…was similarly beautiful and upsetting."
Like me this morning, Meaghan ended up doing the scrunchy-face, tears-streaming, trying-to-hold-it-together cry -- what Rachel Hollis calls "ugly crying." If I'm being honest, my eyes got a little misty on the re-watch too, and I've watched thousands of ads dry-eyed. That alone tells you something worked structurally, not just emotionally. If you're building your own version of a story-driven ad, study this one for how it earns the reveal instead of announcing it -- the same discipline that makes a headline earn the read instead of giving everything away in the first line is exactly what Google did here with the entire narrative.
Are you ugly crying now? If not, you will be soon. Grab some tissues and jump to 2:40 to check out the ad embedded in the video above. And if it moves you the way it moved me, don't just feel it -- go figure out why it worked, and steal the structure for your own in-house creative work.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ken calls it one of the most brilliant ads he's ever seen because it's simple, beautiful, and deeply emotional. It creates an instant, powerful connection to the narrator (who you never see) and caught him completely off guard—unlike predictable Super Bowl ads from brands like Budweiser or GoDaddy. It literally made him cry while reading Ad Age in bed.
Ken believes all business owners should handle their creative production in-house, just like Google did with this ad. You don't need the whole crew on staff full-time, but you should produce your own high-impact ads because you're the one who knows your brand, customers, and story best. You don't have to run it during the Super Bowl, but you need an ad with that type of power and draw.
The Planters ad where Mr. Peanut dies was pulled due to the tragic timing of Kobe Bryant's death in a helicopter accident. Obviously, no one could have predicted that tragedy when the ad was created.
Yes. Meaghan from Ken's leadership team watched it at work and ugly-cried just as much as when she saw the James Blunt music video about his dying dad. Ken himself got misty-eyed even on the re-watch, and both did the scrunchy-face, tears-streaming, trying-to-hold-it-together cry.
