Google Home Alone Again Ad Recreates Famous 1990 Movie Scenes with Today’s Smart Home Technology
Macaulay Culkin is reprising a role that landed him two feature films in the early 1990s that promotes 2018 smart home technology using Google Assistant. The premise of the film is that Culkin’s character is eight years old and part of a large family that accidentally leaves him at home alone while they jet off to Paris to celebrate Christmas. Flight delays and inclement weather conspire to prevent the parents from returning home to the child for several days. Culkin must manage on his own in a pre-smartphone, pre-web era and fend off burglars attempting to rob his family home. In the movie, the lead character turns out to be a very resourceful 8-year old with a knack for assembling household items into elaborate displays and traps for the burglars.
It turns out everything is easier with Google Home devices placed throughout the house. He no longer much meet the pizza-delivery guy at the door but instead speaks to him using a Google Home Hub connected to a Nest doorbell camera. A Google Home Mini is used to activate an elaborate set of moving cardboard cutouts to make it appear the family is at home. A smartphone with Google Assistant is used to add shaving cream to a shopping list.
Spotlighting Productivity and the Smart Home
This is an advertisement launching shortly before Christmas and its goal is to raise awareness of Google Home devices and bind them to a nostalgic memory. A Google Home Hub is shown twice in the commercial, a Google Home Mini once, and Google Assistant use on a smartphone once. The ad also highlights productivity and smart home capabilities just in case consumers need reasons beyond music, weather, and timers to purchase a device. Some features spotlighted include:
- Asking for calendar information and having it displayed and conveyed audibly using a Google Home Hub smart display.
- Using Google Assistant on an Android smartphone to add an item to a shopping list
- Set a reminder using a Google Home Mini
- Speaking to a pizza delivery man through Google Home Hub connected to a Nest doorbell camera
- Adjusting the temperature using Google Assistant hands-free to some unseen Google Home device
- Using a routine to activate several smart home devices, a robot vacuum, and a door lock all at once accessed through a Google Home Mini
It is a lot of features packed into 60-seconds. However, none seem forced because they are there to match smart home technology with an existing movie script. It is an interesting way to promote the Assistant and Google Home ecosystem. You can see the making of video below.
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