A lot of effort to sell headlights.

All the right moves.

Hubris of Biblical proportions.

Visual storytelling at its best.

OK Go does it again. Wow.

The web is … well, that’s obvious, isn’t it? The web is what you make of it. It’s amazingly informative and blazingly deceptive. And increasingly, it’s video.
Which is the point of Google’s new spot.

Why does Google hope to build its brand — and its YouTube viewership, Chrome browser usage, and search engine business — by stating the obvious? Here’s my take:

1. Cherry-picking message elements. Editing has become so tight these days, that one speaker rarely has time to express a complete thought. So the obvious solution in a mashup like this is to juxtapose unrelated thoughts into a new message. It’s a horribly dangerous and generally stilted thing to do in corporate communications… but in this case it works because Google was able to cherry-pick the coolest of moments from its immense YouTube library. Hats off to the researchers/producers who found what works.
2. An authentic emotional arc. This is not the classic “fragmentation” of post-modernism … with all its confusing randomness. There’s a place for that, but in this case Google has a very coherent strategy, and the message is quite simple, linear, and logical. “We’re going to put at your disposal things that will…
   help you change the world;
   help you change yourself,
   help you participate in a larger community.”
3. Integrating the Brand with the Branding. By amalgamating all these little, isolated, non-Google stories into one woven fabric that defines Google’s contribution to the web, the pixels combine to make a bigger picture. And the genius of the spot is that each little pixel stands entirely on its own. That, in essence is why the spot works: most people use Google to do their research and post their videos — so Google can authentically use the Brand to justify the branding vehicle it has chosen.

The Google Brand Experience

To users, Google services appear to be free. And to website owners who accept Google ads, the services seem to be like a cash machine that flows their way… as though they had been given solar panels by the city to put on their roof, and by using them the sunshine drives their electric meter backward. With that kind of actual brand experience, Google can effectively create a spot like this without the risk that its authenticity will be questioned. It’s simply an undisputed fact that Google is how most of us experience the web.

The Google Branding Message

Google’s branding message here is quite simple: “We want to empower you to do what you want. You want to know something? We’ll hook up a mechanism that intuits what you want to do and add power and leverage to your organism.” This spot works, then, because the Brand is so clear in people’s minds, it is relatively easy for the Branding (this spot and its story) to reinforce it.

Often I see companies who try to deliver a “you can do it” message, and because their authentic brand does not fit that attitude it comes off insincere and unconvincing. But companies that wrap themselves in that “empowering your will” mantra can pull it off … companies like Google, Nike and Pemco Insurance. (“We’re a lot like you — a little different.”)

By taking this approach, Google is able to reinforce its original power source, Search; its burgeoning video business; and its new Chrome browser.  The single Brand Experience is assembled by this clever spot into one unified branding message.

(Note: you might want to see my blog article on the difference between “branding” and an actual brand.)

The power of contagion is especially strong in tight public places like this subway in Berlin. Just as in the gut-wrenching movie by Steven Soderbergh, this film about contagion features people who might actually be foaming at the mouth as a result of their affliction. Spoiler alert: no one gets out alive.

According to research reported by Wistia, 64% of Americans admit to watching video on their mobile devices at work. 53% are men and 34% of women. Hmmm…. that only makes 87%. Not sure what sex the other 13% are!

37% don’t care if they’re caught… the others watch on the QT. Here’s what they say about it:

Infographic by: Wistia

If the watchword of postmodern thinking is fragmentation, then I just found the great postmodern love story: Split screen – a love story. Very nicely conceived and executed, even for those of us who don’t know our London geogoraphy.

Splitscreen: A Love Story from JW Griffiths on Vimeo.

Like many Americans who worry about the future and wonder about the best policy to pursue, I watched the President’s speech Sunday night, and Rep. Boehner’s immediate response afterward. They offer a sobering lesson on how ineffective the use of video be when we care about our message the most.

Don’t let the high stakes show on your face

Virginia Heffernan raises the issue in her column for the New York Times: “When Shilling on the Web, Think Small”. She points out that knowing one’s audience is crucial to effectiveness in any web video. She correctly observes that emotion and surprise are an important part of effective web communication; and she observes that Obama stripped all emotion out of his delivery, leaving his audience cold and his objective unattained.



Boehner, for his part, certainly acted more confident, but also seemed stilted and removed to this observer. He made some rather virile assertions that might have felt strong, might have felt like heady rhetoric — depending on the audience. As with Obama’s presentation, the results are still not in.



From the point of view of connecting with and motivating his intended audience, Boehner probably achieved more of his goals than Obama; but from the standpoing of communicating clear content that imparted new knowledge and motivated concrete action, both of them fell far short.

One of the most important lessons from this is that it shows the limits of the medium itself. Whenever we want to communicate a serious message, we are limited by the attention span of our audience and the context of our squawk-box. Folks who watch online have other conversations going on, other people in the room, may be watching on a mobile device in a crowded coffee shop or  with friends. It’s a great environment for watching kittens … a little less ideal for watching important world events.

Then, too, the issues themselves are very complex. As Paul Krugman pointed out, there’s a presumption in the media that both sides are wrong and self-serving, so the presumption of “balance” gives extra power to whichever side is more intransigent, more bold, and more consistent. A complex thinker and cool pragmatist like Obama comes off looking silly and weak in those kinds of comparisons.

Then again, here’s a watchable speech

Of all the video clips I’ve seen on this issue, the one I felt did the best job of articulating a serious message was the speech to the Senate by Al Franken.



Despite taking longer on his topic to get his points across, I think Franken ended up with a more satisfying, more watchable video message for 4 reasons:

1. He spoke warmly and emotionally. Neither of the other guys acted like they really believed their material… They were reading a teleprompter, and especially Obama seemed worried that he would appear too passionate on the topic. Franken, on the other hand, managed to strike a balance in which his humor and sarcasm were restrained … which for him adds a level of passionate seriousness … while his eyes showed a connection with both friends and foes in his discussion. There was warmth there, and there was also a genuine sense of indignation at the falsehoods he exposed, and sadness about the impact on people of these issues. Emotion is essential.

2. He knew his audience. He knew they respect President Reagan, and have a common language of law and precedent. He used those familiar reference points to make his opponents hold still while he earnestly confronted — not pleadingly or weakly, but not stridently or meanly, either — with the facts he chose to present.

3. He used facts with enough detail to do damage. Obama used veiled references to facts, always trying to oversimplify and explain. Can’t say as I really noticed any facts in Boehner’s message. But Franken used historical context and simple, incontrovertable facts to construct a strong case for his arguments. The delivery of factual material … especially through animation and graphics … is one of the most powerful, and underused, strengths of the video medium.

4. Franken told stories. He brought personalities and impacts into his message, and used them to create interest, add drama, provide a basis for the emotion he showed, and helped hold the audience in place.

Now I’m guessing that most of the senators chose not to listen to Al, and probably never heard his message. I’m also guessing that only a few “undecided” people watched it and allowed themselves to be swayed. Still, I think Al’s speech does have a lot of surprising elements; and a logical person of the opposite viewpoint was addressed with enough charm, wit and passion to give them half a chance of being won over. And that was not the case with either Obama’s or Boehner’s speech, in my opinion.

Jon Stewart also addressed the topic, through selective comparison of Obama and Boehner’s words. He gives an expectedly sarcastic, but surprisingly relevant, commentary through his humor. The editing of Obama’s “gold chairs” is choice.

Does it matter?

I think that the most important tool we have as humans is the ability to communicate seriously about complex topics. Our media, which are supposed to help us, generally do not. They distract us, amuse us, confuse us and deceive us, but rarely inform us. And indeed, the media themselves cannot. McLuhan was wrong, the medium is not the message. The message is the message, and we aren’t really communicators if we don’t craft a message and use the medium expertly to do so.

If we wish to communicate effectively a serious viewpoint … what Ms. Heffernan calls “shilling” … then we must look for authentic and effective ways to address our audience, address them with love and empathy, and bring our A game in terms of facts, wit, surprises, and emotion in order to build a bridge of understanding.