Ask.com's New Simple U.S. Commercial

Aug 14, 2007 at 9:31am ET by Barry Schwartz

Gary Price discusses a brand new Ask.com commercial being broadcasted in the U.S. This commercial is very simplistic, with virtually no words to the whole commercial. It just shows feature after feature. Here it is:

This commercial appears to use a totally different creative viewpoint when compared to the new UK commercials staring monkeys.

Is this new commercial too basic? Would, again, love to hear your thoughts.

Related Topics: Ask: Promotions | Channel: Industry

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/ Matt Cutts

I saw that commercial a few days ago. I thought it was interesting that Ask implied that Google just shows “10 blue links,” but the query that they chose was San Francisco. In fact, for that query on Google, I just got:
- websearch results
- a map of san francisco
- pictures of san francisco
- related queries
- news results for san francisco

So I’m not sure that the comparison was as accurate as it could have been. :)
http://www.seroundtable.com rustybrick

Well, to be fair, they did not show the Google logo. :)
RustyS

That’s a lot stronger than their other ads to-date. Silence on a TV ad is actually very noticeable as it actually catches your attention. But the approach they were taking with the UK ads did nothing to really promote Ask itself. It was just another attempt at attention-getting edginess that falls flat and is forgotten once the next 30-second spot rolls up.

Ask’s greatest advantage is in its UI (not the results IMO) and this does a much better job of displaying that. A lot of people like Google’s barebones approach. Even with universal search pulling in other data it still looks circa 1998. But this clearly states what Ask is all about and tries to show its main point of differentiation.
http://www.seomoz.org randfish

Wow… that click noise they recorded is so incredibly satisfying. I wish my mouse sounds like that when I clicked – it’s like this heightened, on “e” type-of-sound.

As far as the rest of the ad goes, who knows? It might actually be successful.
http://www.JohnWEllis.com John Ellis

When they compare themselves to Google, which we all know, that’s what they are doing, they are just reminding the consumer that Google is #1.

Although, this is much better then promoting their algorithm.

More marketing Advise for Ask.com: http://www.johnwellis.com/marketing-advice-for-askcom/
http://www.algopimp.com Michael Shull

I think this is a bold move on behalf of Ask; Lanzone seemed to find humor in Matt’s take on the commercial.

As for the issue of a mostly silent commercial, I disagree that silence draws attention. As someone who constanlty is multi-tasking, I find that silent commercials are nothing more than a wasted opportunity to grab my attention while my nose is in the laptop.