Why did Google make an Ad for India?

One of the companies which has created quite a buzz in recent months by their ad is Google. 3 weeks back Google came out with its “Reunion Ad” which has received more than 1 Cr views as of today on YouTube alone. While the ad in itself is superbly done, in terms of building the emotional connect with consumers, highlighting Google's primary and sort of overarching brand promise - Search, what often people asked was 'why'. Why should Google make an ad, when it owns 97% market share of Search, in India? That too a three and half minute long ad.

One simple answer will be 'Mobile'.
Let's look at few statistics to begin with.

Key conclusions from looking at these trends are:

•       Mobile is driving the internet proliferation in India and globally

•       Smartphones and Tablets are directly eating into PC/ Laptop market, by providing easy internet access and low to mid end data handling and computing capability.

•       Indian consumers are ready to pay for content on Mobile. 300 Cr (Indian paid app market size) is the highest Indian consumers have ever paid for digital content consumption. Hence a clear shift in preference of platform for media consumption.

Google, like many other market leaders of respective categories, is trying to drive one thing above all- penetration of the category, in this case Internet Usage. Almost 90%+ revenue for Google comes from online ad, and hence the second challenge- how to make the users come to Google for all ‘searches’. This is the part which gets tricky when it comes to mobile. In mobile, unlike PC/Laptop, we needn’t access internet only via internet explorer, there are apps (short for ‘application’) which cater to our specialized needs/ interests. With the plethora of apps, such as FB, Twitter, flipkart, bookmyshow, NDTV, Pulse, cricinfo, Zomato and many more, it is limiting the need to use mobile browser. In the long run, Google stands to lose a substantial chunk of mobile internet traffic due to reduced use of google apps or browser. Google’s answer to this is – Google Now. To borrow directly from its definition online - it’s an intelligent personal assistant developed by Google, which is available within the Google Search mobile application for Android and iOS operating system. Google Now is your one stop destination for weather updates, restaurant bookings, flight schedules, traffic updates on your frequently used routes, score updates of your favorite team and so many other things. The idea is to keep the user on Google Search app as much as possible, and provide all the information in a cohesive manner.

So now coming to the ad itself, it has two key deliverables – 1. Establish an instant emotional connect with a large section of the Indian population (what better than partition of India as a topic), 2. showcase the use of Google desktop search and mobile app in day to day life. They have put special emphasis on really setting the context so that nothing seems forced, and hence the length of the ad. You can see the ad online (YouTube) or in Cinemas, since these are only two mediums which support such lengthy ads. Interestingly there are 4 more ads already on Google India channel on YouTube, which takes the story forward and highlights different usage occasions – sports update, translation, online shopping and cooking recipe. These are however shorter edits and are more likely to be seen in TV or Cinema in coming days.

Whether Google is successful in tapping the mobile users, will be keenly watched by many in days to come, however it does leave back clear learnings for – i) Market leaders, in terms of reading changing consumer trends and providing better products/ services to meet them, and ii) importance of developing genuine emotional connect in ad.

[Data Source: India’s Mobile Internet, Report by Avendus]