Google — a big advertising company that doesn’t advertise — debuted at the Super Bowl Sunday. Their ad tells the story of a romance helped along by a series of Google searches conducted by (one is left to imagine) a young man who finds love after a simple plan to study abroad in Paris turns into love, marriage and a need to know how to assemble a crib.

John Battelle more or less ran down Google’s intentions Saturday after Google CEO Eric Schmidt tipped his hand on Twitter. But it was an unexpected move by the search giant which reaps billions from online ads but has eschewed advertising its own brand even as competitors Microsoft and Yahoo have spent 10’s of millions of dollars on television and print creative to compete with the company that nevertheless retains a search market share exceeding 70 percent.

Google’s avoidance of self-promoting commercials might seem unnecessary since their company name is almost a verb when it comes to search. But it is unusual because even big companies with world-known brands find it helpful to remind the public about themselves in a positive light — especially on the Super Bowl. And even Google may also need a little jolt of positive buzz given its bold initiative to scan the world’s books and its high-profile threat to stop censoring search results in China (which means it will be news to some that Google has been censoring search results in China) — to say nothing of its behavioral targeting strategy.

As Battelle reminds, Schmidt in 2006 called brand advertising “The last bastion of unaccountable spending in corporate America.” At something like $3 million per 30-second spot the decision to start (and perhaps finish) a TV campaign on the Super Bowl is a lot like arranging to fly for the first time on the Space Shuttle. And, since it’s just a series of screengrabs of searches, the suggestions as they take shape, and the results which tell the heart-warming narrative, the ad itself must be a contender for the cheapest ever aired during the Super Bowl.

In fact, it wasn’t even produced for the Super Bowl. Schmidt said in a post on the Google blog that the ad, “Parisian Love,” has been on YouTube for over three months and that the company decided “to share it with a wider audience.” Considering that the estimated worldwide audience for Super Bowl XLIV was about one billion people that is an exponentially wider audience than the 1.2 million hits the video has online at this writing.

“We didn’t set out to do a Super Bowl ad, or even a TV ad for search,” Schmidt said in the post. “Our goal was simply to create a series of short online videos about our products and our users, and how they interact.”

More good luck for Google: their ad aired in the third quarter, which isn’t ordinarily prime time since Super Bowl games can tend to be blowouts and viewership drops off. But this year the second half began with a rare onside kick by the New Orleans Saints which they converted into a quick touchdown to take the lead for the first time. The re-energized Saints went on to decisively beat the favored Indianapolis Colts, 31-17.

Reaction to the TV ad, which has no narration and a gentle soundtrack, was quick and largely positive. Word of mouth marketing expert David Binkowski said on Twitter that “@Google ad was very good. Value proposition was dead on and they told their story extremely well.”

New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter joked: “I want to try this “Google.” (Seriously, though, that was a lovely ad, and everybody in the room adored it.”

Wired’s own Steven Levy said, tongue perhaps in cheek, “Can’t wait to see the analytics on Google superbowl ad.”

Media critic Jeff Jarvis was non-plussed. “Disappointed Google didn’t make a new commercial appropriate to the Super Bowl. France? Football? Google?”

But one YouTube commenter in particular was undoubtedly what Google had been hoping for. “ahhh was watching the superbowl (coincidentally as﻿ an American girl in Paris ) and this made me cry!!” said . “Best ad of the whole superbowl!”