Ask.com Promoting Hard Via Commercials

Now that they've said farewell to good old Jeeves, Ask.com is working on spreading the word about their updated service by buying up ad spots on popular prime time tv shows. The new series of commercials features animalistic internet searchers that suddenly become civilized when they run across the modern tools and technology offered by Ask. While my reading thus far leaves me thinking I'm the only one that feels this way, I've got to tell you, I hate these ads.

I've run across several blog mentions of the ad series this morning while catching up on the days news and most of the posts seem to be pretty positive. (If you haven't seen the commercials, you can view them at the Ask.com blog.)

I dislike the ads for two reasons...

1.) They make it seem like Ask.com is an entirely new search engine. Now, it's possible that that's the whole ideal...to cleanly severe their image from the old butler days and to start fresh. In fact, my mom, who stays pretty up to date on the Internet and things that are search related had no idea that Ask.com and AskJeeves.com were the same thing. She got the impression from the commercials that Ask.com was a whole new engine. The reason I think this is bad? Because it's much harder to gain market share as a brand new engine than as an existing engine. I think that more people might be willing to give the site a try if they know that the folks there have been around the block a few times and have experience.

2.) The commercials creep me out. They royally creep me out. I don't think chimps, apes, orangutans or any type of primate is funny. I hate commercials that put primates in people clothes, though not as much as I hate commercials or movies that make people look like apes. It just seems like such a cheap trick to me, old and overdone. I would have expected something more innovative from Ask.

Then there's the issue of the sound. My friend Matt pointed out that when the announcer says 'Search, better on Ask' it actually sounds like he's saying 'Search better on acid.'

Of course...the acid could explain the whole monkey thing...