I've had almost 12 hours to digest Google's first-ever Search commercial, "Parisian Love," which debuted Super Bowl Sunday and I watched again on, naturally, YouTube.

The second time I watched it, it hit me pretty much the way my second viewing of the film Bridges of Madison County did: I was emotionally moved.

Years ago, my wife rented the Clint Eastwood, Meryl Streep weepfest, and I could barely stay in the room. I hated its sentimentality, slow pace, and mawkish tone. Then, a year or so later, I was home alone and it was on again. I don't know why I watched it, but I was transported, and every idea I dismissed as ridiculous the first time, I suddenly totally got. That's what happened with the Google ad.

Slipped in among the in-your-face Super Bowl ads from Doritos, Bud Light, and Go Daddy, Google's all-text search tale about life, love, and more in Paris couldn't even hold my attention. I saw the queries buzzing by and how they seemed to tie together into some story, that, to be honest, I did not even get. Google tied up the whole thing with a nice pink bow of a tag-line, "Search On." Oh, brother.

I tweeted my displeasure and noticed how some people had the opposite reaction. A few called it the best Super Bowl ad of the night. The more I heard about how much people loved the ad, the more I wondered if I had missed something. So, I watched it again online.

It's a simple storythe best ones usually are: A guy decides to study abroad. He quickly meets a French girl who thinks he's cute and whom he tries to impress with his knowledge of all things French. The guy heads back home and a long-distance relationship is attempted. Soon, though, he's seeking a full-time job in France. Eventually, they're married in Paris and starting a family. All of this is played out through Google search queries and results. Multiple Google services are used, such as Translate and Google Maps. In the background are the faintest of sound effects, including a baby crying at the end when the search is for "how to assemble a crib."

I admit, I felt a little twingethe tiniest chillwhen I watched the commercial again. More importantly, I got Google's message.

Despite all the brand extensions into phone sales, operating systems, information and idea management, communication, space exploration, and more, Google is still, at its core, about search. Other commentators noted that we know this already, so why waste all that money telling us again? Fair point, but this commercial was not about telling us what we already know. It was Google's clearest positioning statement in years, and one I think it thought was necessary in the face of the growing number of Microsoft Bing search engine "attack ads."

Microsoft's Bing ads never mention Google by name, but we all know the target. They show people asking others simple questions and getting crazy, seemingly random answers that also happen to fit the query string. What Microsoft's trying to say is that Google's search engine does give you results, but the ones you want could be buried or obscured by errata.

By the way, Google's ad doesn't just deliver an emotional wallop. It's also a demonstration of prowess. The search results come fast and, obviously, are delivered as spot on. I've for sometimes losing sight of why we use the site. As Microsoft argues, and I often agree, good results can be obscured by too much cluttersponsored links shove my relevant results down. On the other hand, I'd be the first one to admit that when I've really needed it, Google gets the job done.

At the recent , I stood outside the Yerba Buena Conference Center, peering through the two slightly ajar double doors where I spotted someone I recognized. He's an actor, a British one. He's funny, relatively well known, and a Twitter star. Everyone around me seemed to know him as well, but no one could remember his name. Not knowing was driving me crazy, so I brought up Google search on my Blackberry Bold and typed in this exact string: "twitter star british funny tech." Inside the fifth result from the top, I spotted the actor's name: Stephen Fry. Nicely done, Google.

Google's Super Bowl message is clear: We give you the search results you want to help propel you forward. The "On" in the "Search On" slogan is not about doing more of it, but about moving forward in life through search. This doesn't make me like the slogan any moreit smacks of 1960's flower-child-dude-ism, but I can now see it as a powerful marketing statement. Bing may be about a search that's ostensibly better than its competitors, but Google is about searching for and finding things that matter in life.

So, yeah, Google got me after all *sniff.*