Google’s adorable Android ad goes viral

Google released a new ad for Android this week and it was met with rave reviews, tons of views on YouTube, and absolute awe from the industry as a whole. The ad ran for roughly one minute and featured a variety of animals playing and frolicking together. Some of the animal pairings were a bit strange, and the ad certainly didn’t go overboard on verbiage, but the ad was absolutely successful. At the very end of the ad, a brief message appeared reading, “Be Together. Not the Same.”

Sometimes when it comes to advertising less really is more. This was definitely one of those instances as those who followed the ad saw just how wildly successful it was. However, Google’s move to include animals in their advertising campaign is something that has largely been reserved for companies like Budweiser around Superbowl time, and without much of a surprise – Budweiser aired a commercial with a dog that was too cute to not love.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnVuqfXohxc

People receive animals really well, and even on the Internet – where commercials don’t play nearly as large a role as they do on television – the ad was received insanely well. While the timing is confusing, and many have attributed the move to release the ad after the Superbowl had a direct correlation to the fact that Google had seen the success of the Budweiser ad, and how it was essentially the top commercial which appeared during the biggest American sporting game of the year.

While the ad is adorable, and fun, it raises a really obvious question. Why didn’t Google do this sooner, and will it even do any good at this point? If the ad isn’t successful in actually getting users to jump on-board with Android – then is the ad successful at all – or are we supposed to believe that this ad was made for the joy of making ads, and that it had no corporate gains or goal in mind? Android as a whole is fragmented to say the least right now, especially as we’re months into the launch of Android 5.0 Lollipop and it has less than a 2% rate of being used. Most users can’t even get the latest edition of Android on their device because it simply isn’t supported.

Meanwhile, Apple just came off the most-successful quarterly earnings report in the history of business, and even beat out previous record holders – oil companies – who were often thought to be immovable forces in that area. This ad is great, but it asks a lot of questions – and may not have any great impact beyond “being cute,” and being relevant online for a few hours.

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  • Been waiting and waiting for Motorola to upgrade my 2013 Moto G. Once Motorola upgrades the Moto series the Android market share should increase.