New Google ad strategy: 10 minutes of a guy saying "pizza" | Hacker News Reader

New Google ad strategy: 10 minutes of a guy saying "pizza"

geek.com

25 pointsthomas30 comments

It was so bizarre that I had to post it on Mashable. It's already on top of Reddit as well. I'd say they're getting the bang for their buck with this one already.

It also comes with a slew of easter eggs, starting with the basketball at 0:42.

the was the coat before that, a water bottle later, kermit the frog, he then gets a massage, then a hotdog.

There I watched it so none of you have too :)

There's also azzip at 1:21, takes you to the entire ad run backwards.

Doesn't anybody find this funny in a weird way? I'm actually in shambles over this one. Just like the subtle weird humor in David Lynch movies. It's surreal.

The handpuppet background cracked me up. To the haters: just skip around the video, and/or watch more Wonder Showzen.

What got me was the video of the dog sticking his head out of the car window, with his lips inflated from catching air. I bailed after that though. I suspected that I should quit while I was smiling.

It had me laughing for nearly two minutes.

I didn't watch any more, but I didn't need to. Part of what made it funny was that there were still 8+ minutes to go at any given point, and that voice in my head saying, "No, not really. Google didn't really put this out. No way."

It is funny in a weird way. Especially if you stick it out because it starts to take on features of boxing like him sitting and drinking water while a trainer pumps him up to take on more

I currently have it open and playing in a tab and keep flipping back to it every so often. Every time I flip back, I crack up (mainly at the thought that a multi-billion dollar company doesn't take themselves too seriously - what a great quality to have)!

I thought this ad was excellent. I chuckled at first, but 10 minutes of entranced viewing later I felt vividly confronted by the absurd and actually had to go lie down. Taken in a very broad context it actually feels like a modern internet art house film.

You guys are missing the point. Microsoft did something like this a while ago (I think it was microsoft?). The idea is to make a an so horrifyingly bad that it gets covered in "the news" and viewed by millions and millions of people who then spend several minutes reading comments about the commercial and thinking about the product.

It's brilliant.

That'll be the Seinfeld/Bill Gates ads.

Microsoft has a long history of terrible advertising.

Here's ballmer in a tacky suit selling windows 1.0: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk

Windows 386 (second half, bear with it): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGO2hVA3P58

Songsmith: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3oGFogwcx-E

And of course, the absolute worst: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xB9fhjnJcB0

Simpsons clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3W1OrcMPMb0

I remembered this clip because it lasts about five second longer than I thought it would. In a quick moving network tv show like the Simpsons, that's an eternity.

Sometimes the humor comes from just going for it, and taking something past where people think it "should" stop. The internet is different from network tv in that 10 minutes of absurdity is much cheaper.

Its also one of the 3 jokes they use on family guy.

It's definitely a joke.. at about 5 minutes in you can hear one of the production guys laugh uncontrollably. The t-rex poking out behind the city scape at 6:45 is pretty good too.

It wasn't actually an uncontrollable laugh, it was a picture of a double rainbow and a really quick parody of this viral video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQSNhk5ICTI

Oh it was double rainbow! So clever Google, so clever.

I wish I was amused. This is what you get when you conscript unwilling programmers into video advertising.

In programming, the difference between

    5.times { say 'pizza' }

and

    200.times { say 'pizza' }

is, what, an order of magnitude or so off. What's the big deal? Fix the bug later.

In advertising, the difference is astronomical. I'd say this is nearly unwatchable, and I'm a fan of quirky humor.

It is very unwatchable, but it is obvious they don't expect most to watch it all the way through in my opinion. They start breaking the pattern and doing subjokes the longer you watch.

One of the worst attempts at viral marketing I've ever seen. It is so awful, you don't even want to share it and wish you'd never seen it.

But it made it to geek.com and HN.

Hell, I didn't even watch the advert but that's the the article I know what it's for. Isn't that the point of viral marketing?

Well, some say that any publicity is good publicity.

But if it comes off as foolish, and you don't even get the point of it, and most who share it are only sharing it because they don't get it, then in the end you've just contributed to people wasting time. They tried to promote their product or service, but all I remember is "stupid" and "pizza". It did however make me associate "Google" with "stupid" and "repetitive".

After watching it, the word "pizza" has turned into a strange, meaningless word-sound.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation

You saw it, I saw it, some random person who will complain about this comment saw it.

By tomorrow there will be spoof videos of people saying "hot dog" or something....

Brilliant.

This ad works on several different levels:

1) It shows a revenue generating, easily understandable action being done hundreds of times in different locations 2)It serves as a sendup of subliminal advertising while also standing as a textbook example. 3) The easter eggs and length encourage people to forward it, making it viral 4) Any reenactments will be yet

What's strange is that the commercials for Chrome are pretty good. This ad is painful to watch. I kept seeking around to see if it got better or at least was different after awhile.

Do the people who made this think that everyone wants to find pizza all the time? It seems far more likely is that you're in Newport RI and you want to find the best Lobster Roll or you're in Memphis and want to find the best BBQ nearby. That's how I end up using the location features of something like Yelp.

don't like jokes, I take it?

unicorn @5:11

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