Ask Advertising Campaign Slammed

Jun 22, 2007 at 1:55pm ET by Phil Bradley

As pointed out on Bruceclay.com — Ask.com thinks you’re an idiot — Ask can sometimes be an irritating company. I like the new Ask3D interface, and they’re doing a lot of good things in the search arena. However, when it comes to how Ask is marketing itself, I’m completely baffled.

In the UK they have been running an “Information Revolution” campaign, employing a font reminiscent of Soviet-era dissident ’samizdat’ typescript. I wrote about this in a column for the Ariadne magazine, and things don’t look any better on the other side of the Atlantic.

In the US, first we had the “Chicks with swords” video (which mercifully doesn’t appear to have made it over to the UK – perhaps Ask thinks we’ve suffered enough), and now they’ve released another one with a woman searching for a gentleman by the name of Kato Kaelin (we don’t know who he is in the UK, and I’m hoping it stays that way).

Admittedly they are also running a couple of other adverts that focus on ‘The Algorithm’ but these are also vague and obscure. Lisa Barone over at Bruceclay is rather more forthright, calling Ask the “king of failed advertising … depicting their users as vapid idiot searchers.”

I really can’t disagree. How hard is it to come up with a campaign that just says “We do search. We can find what you’re looking for quickly and easily?”

Ask has a great search engine; will someone in the company tell that to their advertising team please?

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

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5 COMMENTS ON Ask Advertising Campaign Slammed

slwagg, June 22nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm ET:

Rubbish…completely and utter rubbish not worthy of airing in public. This opinion tract masquerading as news, I mean, not the ads.

How hard is it? ‘We do search. We can find what you’re looking for quickly and easily’… hmmm, why not ASK Yahoo.com how that strategy’s worked for them so far.

By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re talking about the Ask.com campaign.

slwagg, June 22nd, 2007 at 4:19 pm ET:

Rubbish…completely and utter rubbish not worthy of airing in public. This opinion tract masquerading as news, I mean, not the ads.

How hard is it? ‘We do search. We can find what you’re looking for quickly and easily’… hmmm, why not ASK Yahoo.com how that strategy’s worked for them so far.

By the way, in case you hadn’t noticed, you’re talking about the Ask.com campaign.

Philipp Lenssen, June 22nd, 2007 at 7:30 pm ET:

Hmm. On the other hand, it always seems to give them air-time. So maybe they’re doing something right by releasing bad ads…

John Ellis, June 22nd, 2007 at 8:54 pm ET:

Sadly and unfortunately, we Americans know Kato Kaelin. He’s not worth talking about in this forum. You are right it is not worth wasting your time with.

More importantly, Ask.com seems to still follow the old adage that bad discussion is good advertising. Just because someone talks about your product does not mean they are using it. Airtime does not mean revenue.

It is time for Ask.com to drop their “algorithm” marketing campaigns. It was a bad idea from the beginning.

As I mentioned in a post, “Marketing Advice for Ask.com” (http://www.johnwellis.com/marketing-advice-for-askcom/), Ask.com is taking a completely wrong approach. The one group they need to appeal to the most, online marketers, are the ones that are bashing their advertising.

This strategy will kill them sooner than later, if they do not pull back.

-John W Ellis
http://www.JohnWEllis.com

Omadsense, June 25th, 2007 at 7:59 pm ET:

A couple of the ad spot may be intertaining for a minute or to, but I think thier not sending a good message. They seem to be trying to make it sound like using thier search is fun….. But does little to show benefit ….Hey, maybe it’s the youtube mentally behind these ads?

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