An ad behind home plate during Brewers-Dodgers wants us to ‘Google Ass’
Poor placement. Gets ‘em ever time.
If you’ve been watching any of the National League postseason games on Fox or FS1 this October, you’ve been forced to listen to at least one Google Assistant ad by this point. Whether it’s Bob Costas stiltedly reading a “Hey Google” question like he doesn’t even know what Google is, or Joe Buck reading a question about Miller Park capacity in the same voice as he reads a lineup, they’re everywhere.
In Game 2, a Google Assistant add was behind home plate so that people could be reminded of humanity’s steady takeover of sentient robots and the constant theft of your personal data by self aware AI assistants in your phone every time someone came up to bat. They probably paid a lot of money to do that.
Unfortunately, some camera angles made their “Google Assistant” ad into a directive to “Google Ass.” When the shot is zoomed on the batter at the beginning of an at bat, that’s all of the ad you can see for a few seconds.
The @Brewers add to their lead and Milwaukee is ROCKING. #NLCS pic.twitter.com/cdGDvenQhf
— MLB (@MLB) October 13, 2018
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, and right now Google’s advertising team is probably realizing what they did here and are trying to do damage control. Maybe no one noticed though, right?
Well, I have bad news.
Google Ass
— HabitualLineStepper (@carecopterdown) October 13, 2018
I love that it says google ass behind each batter!! #NLCS #Dodgers #Brewers
— Lightning Chazz (@Livewirecharles) October 13, 2018
So, if you Google Ass, you get Ryan Braun? Sounds about right. #LADvsMIL #MLB pic.twitter.com/oHpSllmfMG
— Mark Duell (@markduell) October 13, 2018
Sweet Jesus, does Google really want me to look up #ass? @FOXSports @Brewers @MLB @Dodgers pic.twitter.com/Ku9kDC7Xsm
— Tom Dallessio (@TDallessio) October 13, 2018
Better luck next postseason. Maybe Fox can confirm what they’re exact camera angle is going to be before Google spends more marketing dollars next year. Can Google Assistant set reminders?
“Hey Google, remind us not to tell millions of baseball fans to Google Ass next MLB postseason. Thanks.”

