An interesting development at the beginning of the year bring out how emotional connect has become as important as interweaving ads, marketing strategy and content in the search and social realm. The idea seems not only to maximize revenue generating opportunities but also to make the products appear as an integral part of everyday life for people. With this in mind, Google has gradually made a shift in strategy.

Google is trying to push its search engine as a marketable brand, though it’s hardly unknown to anyone, with no less than two-thirds of the total market share in the US. The thought behind this is to remind users why and how Google and its impact on our lives matter and to represent its powerful online brand in the offline realm. Google’s rival, Microsoft’s Bing, also has been running an ad campaign.

As the search engine giant faces antitrust regulators’ scrutiny, it is eager to narrate ‘heartwarming’ tales about itself to connect with audiences; it’s about human emotion, a bit surprising for a hardcore company, but that’s the way to go. Google believes. Its ad for Chrome, ‘Dear Sophie’ tries to touch the hearts with an emotional appeal. And this despite the fact that data is the king at Google; it’s still not wanting to back up mushy sentimental branding with hard data.

This has been a major transformation for Google, already a household name that still feels the needs to tell an interesting story now. One reason is that it needs new properties like the Google Plus and the Chrome browser to succeed for finding revenue sources beyond search ads. The campaign is part of its mission, launched by its chief executive and co-founder Larry Page to cut down its product offerings and make the existing products more intuitive, attractive and better integrated with one another.

The company won’t divulge how much money it has spent for the global marketing push, albeit it concedes the fact that there had been an apparent shift in strategy. The vice president (global marketing), Lorraine Twohill, has been quoted as saying that as the company gets bigger, it faces more competition, more messages to consumers; more products are there, so it needs to do a bit more for communicating what they actually are and how you can utilize these products, she emphasized.

Lorin Pollack, Google’s event planner reasons that they run an online brand and one cannot actually experience it but for typing keys. So it’s a responsibility to bring the brand to life outside of the realm of computer. The expert adds: “Google is a clean and simple brand. I draw inspiration from the home page, which is just simple.”

Google’s strategy seems to have connected with most viewers since they would prefer viewing a real-life story than have a slew of products being pushed at them.