Google continues to advertise aggressively for their web browser, Google Chrome. Today, they took over the right side of the New York Times homepage with an expanding video ad that rotates through different Chrome commercials (called “Chrome Shorts”). In itself, it is interesting that Google is marketing the browser so prominently… but never really mentioning the product, benefits, and so forth (entirely the opposite approach of the new Microsoft ads, for instance).

Here is where the campaign is bizarre though:

1. I use Google Chrome. Why pay to promote Google Chrome to me… when I have already converted? Seems wasteful…

2. The ad interaction is actually broken within Google Chrome. The ad expands but will not play – rather, it collapses when you try to hover over any of the videos… which in turn is not the greatest selling point for the product it is trying to promote

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