It wasn’t that long ago that the idea of flipping on a television and seeing a commercial for anything Google-related seemed totally implausible. For many years, the company seemed to take a certain pride in not having to resort to traditional marketing channels, and it eschewed TV ads entirely for well over a decade of its existence. Then, in February 2010, the web giant made its TV commercial debut: with a Super Bowl Ad, no less (and a fantastic one at that).
Since then it’s become a bit more common to see Google ads running on TV — the company has started promoting its Chrome browser with ads, for example. And earlier today it ran what appears to be its first TV spot for its social network, Google+.
The ad, which appeared during the Thanksgiving Day Lions/Packers game, focuses heavily on Google+’s Circles feature and Hangouts, telling viewers that it’s “Sharing, but like real life”.
The move isn’t terribly surprising — Google has been putting a lot of muscle behind driving users toward Google+, including featuring an unmissable ad on Google.com when the service first opened its doors to the public, and prompting users of the latest version of Android to create a Google+ if they haven’t already.