Search engine drive backfires

Google rival's online campaign fails to reach mass appeal

An internet-based campaign launched last month to challenge Google’s search engine dominance has provoked a stormy response from internet users.

Information-revolution.org, which was heavily advertised on the London Underground and through publicity stunts, is designed to look like a genuine “underground” campaign to promote freedom of choice on the web.

In fact, it was put together by digital advertising agency Profero on behalf of Ask.com, the search engine which currently has 7.8% of the UK market compared with Google’s 68%.

Launching the campaign, Ask said it was targeting the “62% of UK search engine users who give little or no thought about which search engine they use, aka ‘sleep searching’”.

Ads agency Fallon London devised campaign slogans such as “stop the information monopoly”. Teams accosted commuters outside Tube stations and messages were projected onto “iconic London sites”.

But contributors to Information-revolution.org’s own message boards – and elsewhere in the blogosphere – so far appear unimpressed.

One chatroom contributor described it as “a vacuous piece of marketing disguised as ‘revolution’”. Another said: “Congratulations, I will now actively avoid Ask.com.” While a third said: “I don’t use Ask simply because it’s crap compared to G**gle.”

Profero and Fallon refused to comment, but an Ask.com spokesman insisted the campaign had been a success. “It has sparked a debate and made consumers think about how they use search engines,” he said, adding that it had “resulted in driving awareness and traffic to our site”.

Responding to the negative feedback, he said: “Any time you challenge someone’s belief system, you have to anticipate a lively response, which many of the bloggers demonstrate.”