Also around for a little while already, but never appeared here: the information revolution campaign by Ask.com, the search engine. It all started with a big billboard where lots of stickers were put on, which you could take away. The stickers pictured a hand that held a bunch of cables. Claudia, who sends in this campaign, saw the billboard for the first time in East-London (Shoreditch). She took a sticker home because she liked the image and the copy on it said: “One choice isn’t a choice”. The day before yesterday she saw a billboard with the same image but with this url added to it: www.information-revolution.org. She also saw a 10-second spot on TV, in which it looked like the channel was being hijacked. Because of the color-combo, she thought it had something to do with politics and went to the site where she found out it was a campaign from Ask.com, aimed against Google’s monopoly in search. The forum on the site reveals that fewer and fewer people are enthusiastic about the fact Ask adopted the leftish (politic) symbols for its campaign. Claudia is a little bit disappointed about the entire campaign. I think it’s a great way to create buzz, to lead people to a site, but I have to agree that the buzz leads to nowhere, and that’s not really a good thing. It should’ve been more spectacular. This is an example of how a campaign can turn itself against you because you’re using the wrong symbols to communicate.
More about this campaign at:
Thanks, Claudia
Dean
April 4, 2007 at 12:01 am
I agree; this would be a better campaign if it was marketed for the right product. Actually, it would be a better campaign if it wasn’t so insigificant. This is just like “That Girl Emily” from last year – another viral campaign (which I’m quickly beginning to loathe). If information-revolution.org had helpful information, or encouraged people to become more search-savvy (without pimping ask.com), that would be one thing, but this is just silly. There’s nothing compelling that makes me want to come back and, quite frankly, it’s a bit immature. I realize that it’s being marketed to the younger tech-savvy crowd, but it seems immature even by those standards. On this page there’s a box that says “click to understand why” – I’m clicking, because I’d like to understand, but it’s not even a link. Perhaps it’s implying that I should click on the pictures below it but, to me, that’s sloppy, and it certainly doesn’t make me want to spend any more time on the site.
/rant :)
Business Marketing
April 4, 2007 at 6:08 am
The message takes too long to figure out for starters. Maybe they’ll get their so called revolution over time, but ideas that spread usually are simpler and easier to act upon.
One big thing it has going for it is early adopters and “sneezers” (as Seth Godin calls them) are a little bit eccentric and tend to identify with things such as this more so than the mainstream majority.