Google Used a Fake Pizza Brand to Test Ad Effectiveness on YouTube

In an effort to challenge some of the established adages in advertising, Google and Unskippable Labs created a fake pizza brand called ‘Doctor Fork’ to test creative ad strategies that real brands don’t have the freedom to employ. TechCrunch detailed the experiment that measured the effectiveness of 33 ads using stock images and footage on YouTube, a much bigger medium than a traditional focus group could provide.

Not only did the ‘Doctor Fork’ ads result in 20 million impressions, but they revealed user preferences that can be applied practically to real brands as well. Google’s findings revealed users prefer multi-sensory experiences that ads should facilitate through audio, video and text, food ads that include zoomed in shots of foods play most favorably and younger audiences respond better to first-person commentary than older viewers did.