Google’s ‘Search Stories’ campaign is one of my favorite advertising campaigns. Google released a series of stories, but displayed them not through human actors, but through searches on Google’s variety of services with accompanying background music. The most successful is the Parisian Love video, which has garnered over 6 million views on YouTube and was run during the 2010 Superbowl. Another personal favorite is the Dog story.

These videos appeal to human emotion, making them highly enjoyed by all viewers while also displaying Google’s search, YouTube, Maps and other services.

The best part about this campaign is that Google invites you to respond and create your own Search Stories ad, so they are engaging people instead of just talking to them. Google launched a web application that allows you to select what you want to be displayed and provides a variety of background music choices. Then, you can immediately upload the video onto YouTube, one of Google’s services.

Throughout this whole campaign, Google informs and engages viewers while keeping them within the Google services circle. This is a great execution of user-generated marketing. I’ve tried making my own Search Story, you can too here: https://searchstories-intl.appspot.com/en-us/creator/