Ask Jeeves has recently told Marcos Sorensen, the artist who designed the iconic butler, to start thinking on a larger scale. Sorensen, who in recent years has been limited to designing web presentations and company shirts, has been asked to help in the design of a massive balloon, for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Sorensen would be designing the balloon in the butler’s likeness.
The butler balloon will float high through midtown Manhattan on Thanksgiving Day. It’s been two years since the butler graced the skies of the parade, due to a miniscule marketing budget. Sorensen is in thoughts about a redesign of the butler, without the chubby cheeks. He hopes to make Jeeves look more lean and fit in order to reflect Ask’s speedy searches.
This decision to be in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, a major marketing event, is proof that Ask Jeeves has risen from almost extinction during the dot-com crash and has once again become consistently profitable. This profitability comes with the help of Google, whose AdWords/AdSense program serves Ask’s SERP ads.
To succeed, Ask Jeeves has to overcome its diminutive size. With Google, MSN, and Yahoo being much larger and having deeper pockets, Ask Jeeves must be very careful of any marketing venture they set out on.
Jeremy Muncy is a staff writer for www.murdok.org
