Google’s latest Pixel 10 Pro ads are wildly unrealistic, creepy, and potentially misleading

Sometimes ads don’t achieve the results advertisers may have intended. While some are just unrelatable or unfunny, others are just tone-deaf. And the latter kind sparks controversies and backlash online, as did Apple’s infamous “crush” ad, where it put musical instruments, an arcade machine, countless boxes of paint, literally stuff worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, under a hydraulic press to signify how different tools of creativity are crammed into the super-slim iPad Air. That one ended up receiving so much criticism that Apple not only removed the ad but also apologized.

Other biggies like Google and Samsung have their own share of such ads too, like the recent “Sydney” ad by Google, where a young girl writes a heartfelt letter to her idol, except the letter is written with Gemini. While that didn’t fly off the ground, Google now has two more ads treading similar lines.

Google has recently released two new ads for the Pixel 10 series, and they can be placed anywhere on the spectrum from cringe to annoying, with one in particular reeking of creepiness. The first of these ads, titled “Moving On,” chronicles the journey of a person’s relationship with their phone, and how it becomes difficult to use over time.

“Pretty normal,” you would think, right? However, Google decided to add a rather unsettling twist. The ad is narrated from the phone’s perspective, progressing from capturing the person’s attention to observing their waning interest, and finally being dumped (literally) into the trash can. When the person finally upgrades to a Pixel 10 Pro, the old phone is still privy to the person’s life and “trying to process” the “moving on.” The ad’s narration gives off the vibe of a creepy ex-turned-stalker, and would probably remind you of Penn Badgley’s character from Netflix’s smash-hit You.

What really gets to me is how the old phone is still aware of the person’s whereabouts, even after being dumped, presumably left for its battery to die in a few days, if not hours. How is the ex-phone still following the person around and aware of what’s happening with the person? Did it survive being left without any charge, slowly crawl out of the trash can, and continue to live? I know I’m not supposed to hunt for logic here, but I’m definitely curious to learn what the people behind the ad were even thinking.

The second ad is not as creepy, but a little nettling. It shows a couple walking into a hotel room with a promised ocean view. The hotel has clearly lied because the ocean is actually too far to be seen from the hotel room window.

So what if the hotel lied on its listings? Google suggests you can zoom in on the beachfront using the Pixel 10 Pro’s 100x AI-enhanced digital zoom.

What’s even more annoying is that Google notes that the effects on the screen are “simulated” for “illustrative purposes” and that “additional hardware” was used to capture the scenes, effectively nullifying the effects it is trying to sell in the ads. It’s basically giving off the same energy as those moon-shot claims, where a picture of the moon is artificially superimposed over a dull white blob in the night sky.