Ask's TV Commercials

[sheseltine]

It looks like the Ask.com advertising push has started, I saw a tv commercial last night for the new site. It involved a couple of scientists and a talking Orang-utan (I guess the talking chimps were too busy advertising tea)

[rustybrick]

I am trying to find them online, they are pretty creative commercials, imo.

[Elisabeth]

Originally Posted by rustybrick

I am trying to find them online, they are pretty creative commercials, imo.

C'mon RB - you have some pull over there - you must be able to get them to put them somewhere on Ask.com

some are funny, but i've seen one or two now that aren't as good as the others.

[rustybrick]

True.

Well, I am told the commercials should be live at the Ask Blog sometime today.

We will see.

[dannysullivan]

We've had them in the UK for a couple of weeks now with the new Ask brand; before that, we still had them for Ask Jeeves. Maybe I'll post some screenshots.

[GaryTheScubaDiver]

I've seen them here (Atlanta, GA) for almost 2 weeks now. They have motivated me to add Ask.com to my daily chores.

[rustybrick]

It's live at http://blog.ask.com/2006/03/ask_in_primetim.html

[Tim]

Is Ask using the media campaign to build their brand awareness while
also expecting to mitigate the campaign's cost with Google ad revenues?

[rustybrick]

I think they are trying to build the brand, first and foremost.

I doubt they are thinking, they are advertising on TV, to realize an immediate source of ad income from the PPC side of things.

[vayapues]

Saw the ads for the first time yesterday in SLC, UT. But than again, I don't watch much TV, they could have been here longer.

I was impressed with them. Direct, and informative. I had not played around with the new Ask.com search tools since last month when they were launched. The ads prompted me to go back and use them a bit.

With G still gaining market share, Ask has a long way to go. I am glad they are in the game though. The more the merrier.

[Jonathan Mendez]

So their big pitch to users is more tools. "Feel human, use tools" I think was the message. The other message I got was "saves time" by using the previews and not having to click.

If it gets people to try out the new ask.com then I guess it works. But I'm afraid that's not enough differentiation for most.

I think the SE is the tool in the minds of users. What ask.com is selling are the tools for using the results. Hard sell in my opinion. I feel pretty human when I read too.

As far as saving time by using binoculars this seems to be a circa 2002 issue. Raise your hand if you are on 56 Kbps. Is it that much trouble to click and use your back button. Of more concern there are usability issues with the previews and worst of all the cached pages seem to be out of date. The one test search I did on "sneakers" shows a preview of Foot Locker's holiday sale homepage. Of course 3 months later this is hardly a preview. More like a postview.

I will say that I do now use ask.com's image search as part of my regular image searching routine. They might be better served touting some more specialized search applications to try and win hearts and minds.

Does anyone know the title of the song in the background of Ask.com's cafe commercial in which users act like chimps (evolve)? It has a reggae type rhythm and I am wondering if was written for them or if it is availabe...

[emonmare]

after hearing so much about this commercial and never been able to see it on air, it was nice to be able to find it here. I was pleasantly surprised by it's creativity and humor (which most commercials lack these days). The internet cafe concept was hilarious as the humonkeys totally appear to have had way too much caffeine as they embark on their quest for "searching".

[sheseltine]

Got to say that I'm not that thrilled with the new commercials - "If librarians use it, it's got to be good for you"... I expected a little bit more humo(u)r or a catchy tag line

[pleeker]

The guy-monkey swinging from the light fixture in the Cafe spot is hysterical -- love it!

I also saw a Flash-based web banner ad for Ask about a week ago that was very effective. It was an incredibly fast scroll down through what appeared to be Google's SERPs -- just kept scrolling and scrolling, and so fast you had to watch it. And then it faded into the message about finding what you want with tools on Ask.com.

[emonmare]

this commercial was actually filmed at Love Birds Cafe in Pasadena CA so I was trying to see if the place was recognizable at all. all I recognized was the light fixture and the counter.

After checking out the new ASK.com? How would you rate it against Yahoo? I'm not keen on Yahoo's layout but their results seem okay.

Thoughts anyone?