On February 2nd, 2020, Google premiered a new commercial titled "Loretta” during the Super Bowl, featuring the San Francisco 49ers vs. the Kansas City Chiefs. "Loretta" follows the story of an older man who uses Google to remember his late wife, Loretta. As the United States was on the brink of a global pandemic, Loretta's humanity struck a chord with viewers and was lauded as the most effective Super Bowl ad of 2020. The Loretta commercial was created in-house (rather than through an agency) and was inspired by the grandparents of a Google designer who worked on the campaign. Backed by a 16.8 million dollar budget, Google creative director, Jesse Juriga, and Google stakeholders garnered 10.8 million views by the end of the night and a 50% favorability rating from viewers, leveraging the grief of this elusive Google designer.
In a statement about the ad, Google revealed, "The voice you hear throughout Loretta is the grandfather of a Googler, whose story we drew from to create the ad." It’s unknown whether this is true today, and the name of this supposed Google designer has not been disclosed. If the story is true, Loretta is an excellent example of stakeholders collaborating with in-house creative leaders to spotlight mental health and create an enticing human product.
These days, corporations consistently find innovative ways to connect with consumers through emotions and nostalgia. Shows like Netflix’s Stranger Things and the increasing popularity of Depop continue to drive marketing analytics to believe that Gen Z and millennials are easy targets for this advertising style. According to YouTube’s Culture & Trends Report, 82 percent of Gen Z have used YouTube to watch content that evokes nostalgia. Similarly, campaigns such as Chili’s Scranton Branch and Adidas’ We All Need Someone To Make Us Believe ads are efforts by industrial giants to create an emotional connection that leads the young demographic to idolize the Chili’s Triple Dipper or purchase a Miami Messi jersey despite not being a fan of either. Ultimately, the Chili’s Scranton Branch ad, which aimed to promote a singular new Chili’s location being built in Scranton, Pennsylvania (which is actually in Dickson City), received around 3 million views, deeming it a successful branding campaign.
Although it seems to benefit society (like finally getting a Chili’s Scranton Branch) to create emotional and engaging works for corporations, its prioritization of profitability raises concerns. The need for the common man to find an emotional connection to engage with consumerism makes me feel that art for profit's sake may not be art at all. Emotional capitalism has become a prominent aspect of digital advertising as tech giants continue to discover ways to stretch the bottom line.
Sociologist Eva Illouz writes about “emotional capitalism” and how it dissolves the boundaries between private emotions and public narratives. The Loretta ad transforms private grief (factual or fabricated) into a public spectacle, aligning a personal story with Google’s corporate agenda. This leaves us pondering: What do we do about the intersection of capitalism and emotion when the line between authenticity and manipulation becomes so thin that businesses use grief as a corporate asset?
Historically, we have been his way for centuries. Early Christians, driven by faith and a desire for spiritual intimacy, sought relics that promised a tangible link to God. Bone fragments of saints, splinters of the “true cross,” and personal belongings of martyrs became coveted treasures. Yet, in their desperation to feel closer to God, they became victims of a burgeoning “emotional capitalism,” where religious institutions and opportunistic merchants exploited their faith for profit. More recently, the Medici family sponsored artists like Michelangelo, Raphael, and Leonardo Da Vinci to create works like The Birth of Venus or Brunelleschi's Dome in Florence, Italy. The artwork funded by the Medici is beautiful and influential, often using religion or emotion to evoke a response. The Medici sponsored art, perhaps at times, for art’s sake. However, they most often sponsored art because of the status it conferred upon them. Fast forward to today: we no longer live in a world where the Tomb of Lorenzo de' Medici provides the Medici with much power, especially since there is no direct lineage to the Medici family today. Thus, we can engage with their artwork in a way that feels more like art for art’s sake and not for profit’s sake.
Our modern-day Medici now appears in the form of Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and others. In 2024, Apple generated 390 billion dollars, Microsoft generated 245 billion dollars, and Google generated 348 billion dollars, and I don’t see consumers stopping anytime soon. I don’t believe our generation is any different from the manipulated generations before us. Whether it’s Google or the Medici family, the ordinary person will seek to consume anything to which they find a connection. Perhaps it’s just something to be conscious of. Maybe one day the last Zuckerberg heir will die, and all the META ads will be seen as art for art’s sake in the year 2,600. For now, despite our economy falling into a deeper recession every day, I think the iPhone will remain something we all want and need. With the cost of living increasing and fulfilling employment opportunities decreasing, the consensus among Gen Z is that “the job market is so bad people out here following their dreams.” I think that dream includes the newest iPhone and a subscription to Amazon Prime, even if it comes at the cost of manipulated grief and emotional manipulation.