Google has released a new Android ad that discusses fragmentation by killing us with cuteness.
The ad depicts different videos of animals that are surprising best friends. There are elephants and dogs playing together, monkeys and horses, and even dogs and cats.
The message at the end of the ad is simple "Be together. Not the same."
The ad also, however, could be seen as taking a bit of a dig at Apple. While users can customize a wide range of different things on their Android device and customers can purchase different phones running different versions of Android, such as with Samsung's TouchWiz and HTC's Sense. There is, however, only one iOS.
It could also be seen as saying that there is a variety of hardware devices available that run Android, but there is only one company that makes the iPhone.
The ad campaign also pulls at the heartstrings of the viewer. Who doesn't want to see a dog having a pool party with an elephant? Or a cat opens a door so a dog can get through?
Android has been fragmented almost since it was first developed, however this is normally painted in a bad light. It's interesting to see it from the perspective of "being together, not the same" rather than simply being fragmented.
Google has really stepped up its advertising game for Android in the past year. So much that late last year it put up a massive billboard in Times Square that will be seen by 300,000 people per day. It was estimated that the billboard cost a whopping $2.5 million for the four weeks that it was up, and it touts the same "Be together. Not the same" slogan. The billboard was also up through the New Year.
Google's new advertising push is hot off the heels of the release of the Google Nexus 6 phablet and the Nexus 9 tablet, which were released late last year. These devices are the most advanced Nexus devices ever released by the company, and at least the Nexus 6 takes the company in a different direction as far as smartphones go, being larger than most phones on the market.
Google's Nexus devices offer the users with Android as it was supposed to be, running what's called "stock Android." This means that it is not altered by companies, such as Samsung, with Samsung TouchWiz and HTC with HTC Sense.