

New Google ad strategy: 10 minutes of a guy saying "pizza" - thomas
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/google-mobile-pizza-advert-what-were-they-thinking-20100924/

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Mystalic
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.

~~~
nkassis
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 :)

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

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edo
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.

~~~
27182818284
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

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katovatzschyn
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.

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blhack
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.

~~~
zandorg
That'll be the Seinfeld/Bill Gates ads.

~~~
scrame
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>

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scott_s
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.

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

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ianbishop
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.

~~~
sofal
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>

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

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djacobs
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.

~~~
27182818284
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.

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devmonk
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.

~~~
jeebusroxors
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?

~~~
devmonk
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".

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

~~~
khakionion
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_satiation>

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ramanujan
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

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jswinghammer
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.

~~~
Psyonic
don't like jokes, I take it?

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shawndumas
unicorn @5:11

