Google Chrome | The Web Is What You Make of It | 2011
This Is What the Internet Was Meant to Be / Google Chrome "Lady Gaga"
On 5/21/2011, this commercial aired live during Saturday Night Live. Lady Gaga running across the Brooklyn Bridge, fans dancing and singing their hearts out, filling the whole screen. That raw energy grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
The problem
After Google's quiet love story ad "Parisian Love" ran during the 2010 Super Bowl, the company moved into TV advertising in earnest in 2011. This commercial, starring Gaga and her fans, was part of a campaign called "The Web Is What You Make of It."
The insight
Gaga was moved by Google's "It Gets Better" project and decided to take part in this ad for free. Thousands of videos poured in of fans singing her new song "The Edge of Glory," and those clips were stitched together to create this commercial. The fans' voices themselves became the soundtrack.
The idea
Gaga runs across the bridge, rehearses, connects with fans online. In between, clips of fans singing "Edge of Glory" keep cutting in: elementary schoolers dancing in a classroom, a girl spinning in her room surrounded by confetti. Gaga blows a kiss and says "Stay strong, little monsters!" and at the end, the words "The web is what you make of it" burst onto the screen along with the Chrome logo. 90 seconds that fly by in an instant.
What happened
It aired again the next day during the Billboard Music Awards, and won a Merit Award in the Branded Entertainment Music category at The One Show.
Afterthought
"The internet is a democratic, free, joyful place" — that's the kind of energy that fills these 90 seconds. It's not a pitch for Chrome, it's a celebration of the web itself as a tool. I sometimes wonder where all that energy went.
