Google launches first TV adverts

Google has launched its first television advertising campaign across a range of US networks.
The company's TV adverts are an attempt to draw the public's attention to Chrome, the web browser that it launched last year in an attempt to compete with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
The company has famously avoided traditional marketing in the past – indeed, its website boasts that it has become "one of the world's best known brands almost entirely through word of mouth".

But Google is desperate to raise the profile of Chrome, which launched to great fanfare last September but has so far failed to make major inroads on its competitors.

According to statistics from Net Applications, Internet Explorer continues to win the browser wars with a market share of 66%. In second place is Mozilla's Firefox, which is used by 22% of web users, while Apple's Safari program comes third with 8%.

Chrome, meanwhile, is the choice of just 1.4% of internet users.

It remains to be seen how mainstream audiences will respond to the clip, however, which has no voiceover, does not mention the fact that it is advertising a web browser and only displays the Google logo at the very end.

The campaign is also an attempt to highlight the effectiveness of the company's TV Ads system, which lets Google act as a broker to sell advertising time on television networks. Most advertisers and TV broadcasters consider the scheme to be an interesting but niche experiment, after striking just a handful of high-profile deals since it first began two years ago. Google is hoping that the Chrome campaign can help push the concept of using TV Ads into the minds of media executives.

The 30-second spot shows a stop-motion animation in which a tray of children's play bricks is rearranged to resemble a browser window – an image intended to represent the simplicity and ease of using Chrome.

In a statement on the official Google blog, the company said that the video was made by a team from Google Japan as a YouTube clip, but had proved so successful that it had decided to take it on to traditional television.

"After releasing this video on the web, we got lots of positive feedback and thoughtful comments," said the company. "We designed a Google TV Ads campaign which we hope will raise awareness of our browser ... we're excited to see how this test goes and what impact television might have on creating more awareness of Google Chrome."