Google’s Super Bowl commercial shows how its phone fixes the funniest photo mishaps
The 90-second ad blends sentimentality and humor to show how Pixel phones can alter history, literally.
Google hopes people hunger for that photo touch in its newly released Super Bowl commercial. The tech giant revealed its 90-second spot, which opens with a familiar orchestral refrain from the song “Unchained Melody,” and proceeds to flash nostalgic photos across the screen, only each photo is slightly off. In one photo, the family dog is in the background doing his business, and in another, a frisbee player photobombs a family on the beach.
“For years, our phones have captured our memories,” the commercial says. “Now, it’s time to fix them.”
The ad is called “Fixed on Pixel,” and will run in the second quarter of Sunday’s Super Bowl. It’s the second year in a row that Google is using the Big Game to promote its Pixel phone, and in particular, its camera features. Last year’s commercial, starring Lizzo, won a Cannes Lions Mobile Lions award.
This year, Google’s ad has some funny takes on photo mishaps, and it features actress Amy Schumer, who has been known to photobomb wedding photos. Also, NBA All-Star Giannis Antetokounmpo has a role, using Google’s camera editing features to erase himself from a photo where he is getting posterized. (Posterized is when an NBA player gets dunked on, in an image worthy of a poster.) Musical artist Doja Cat makes an appearance on a red carpet snapping photos, too.
The rest of the ad features everyday consumers with memories in photos they might want to alter, such as changing an unfortunate wardrobe choice or deleting a person loitering in the background of a shot.
Some of the photo edits, though, perhaps should be left alone—one image shows a brother and sister outside a restaurant with a random third child behind them, a toddler with its face smushed against the window. That might be a keeper.
The commercial, produced by Google’s in-house creative team, mixes sentimentality, comedy and technology.