Google had two new advertisements to show during the 90th Academy Awards, taking advantage of the huge viewership of the event to highlight its A.I.-driven Assistant and a smart doorbell from Nest. That’s hardly surprising since the Oscars are among the most-watched televised events of the year and, as with events like the Super Bowl, it’s a good opportunity for companies to reach a wider audience than usual. To that end, the spots respectively run approximately one and a half minutes and 30 seconds and are a bit more creative than usual. The first is intended to show off what Google’s Assistant is capable of on the smart home and digital assistant front, while the second provides a more out-of-the-box use for Nest’s camera and speaker enabled doorbell.
The Google Assistant advertisement runs around one minute and thirty-five seconds. It sees users going through a dozen or so various scenarios where they need to remember something or need to accomplish an in-home task, such as turning on the lights. It also goes a bit further to include smartphone functionality, like taking a selfie.The dialogue is summarily comprised of thoughts in users’ heads and in between each scenario, a message flashes onto the screen which reads, “Make Google Do It.” The implication is clearly that Google Assistant can accomplish the required tasks for users. Among the highlights from the reel is a scene where a user falls down, dropping their shopping as they reach around in a dark room to find a light. In another scene, an astronaut realizes that they’ve forgotten to lock their front door and reaches out to assistant to remotely lock the door from the moon. Of course, Google’s Assistant has gotten much better over the past year and Google is working hard to let users know that it is catching up to Alexa in terms of smart home functionality and smartphone features. At the same time, Google’s ad also takes a comedic stab at its own limitations – at one point showing a girl who wants to break up with her boyfriend, with the message changing to read “That one’s on you.”
Nest’s ad only ran around a third of the length of Google’s and centered around a father talking via the doorbell with his teen son as the boy heads out to prom night with his date. Rather than focusing on the more standard use of video doorbells, Nest shows off its newest creation – which releases in March – in a completely different way. The father in the video uses the camera on the doorbell to watch for an opportune moment to talk to his son alone. Then he offers up advice on how to properly treat his date, reminding his son that prom is a special night for all involved. He goes further to tell the boy that he shouldn’t assume that the relationship is anything more than just accompanying the girl to the dance. As the ad ends, it turns out that the dad is actually communicating via a smartphone and the doorbell from his workplace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eegp9AaqbxE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSXBJk2xGH8