Ask.Com Ad Campaign Futility
Augustine: "if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow." -- absolutely agreed. It is harder than ever to stand out these days with new web 2.0 websites springing up daily. The key is to start with something simple, yet remarkable enough that users are compelled to share it with friends (they know best what their friends are likely to like). And the next key is to continue to innovate and build so that the remarkability is sustainable. This could be extremely difficult, BUT web services have a built in customer feedback mechanism and power users/lead adopters are usually the ones that have the best ideas to share about how to improve a web service. So by putting in place the business processes to incorporate such ideas rapidly into features, a site can leverage continuous user innovation to help it continue to grow virally.
One other example from the field... a colleague at American Express was able to prove an early hypothesis of mine -- cut above-the-line advertising by half and there will be NO detrimental effect on website traffic or new cards acquired. His budget was cut by 80% in last year's belt tightening, BUT to everyone's surprise the website traffic showed NO decrease, and the rate of customers signing up for cards on the website showed NO decrease -- i.e. traditional advertising IS being ignored more completely than ANY industry reports are willing to admit.
I think Ask.com is terrific! I think it was smart for IAC to purchase it a few years ago.
Recently the folks at Ask have been pushing a billboard and television ad campaign to stimulate readership. The billboard campaign was ridiculous. However the tv ads are terrific.
I doubt, however, that any ad will grow traffic to Ask. Our short Internet history has shown one thing: if a site cannot grow virally, it just will not grow.
The IAC management comes out of the old media tradition. While it has made terrific Web site purchases over the years, these ad campaigns seem to be coming from their old media training. I suggest they use the ad dollars for some more solid Web deals.
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