It’s Official – Ask.com Plunges Into Direct Response
There are many “official” products of NASCAR and its various affiliates. Some tie in beautifully. Some, not so much. But few have done as good a job with direct branding as Ask.com, its “official search engine.”
Since very early this racing season, Ask.com has been more than a sponsor name. It’s been a very visible participant in NASCAR Sprint Cup race broadcasts on Fox.
Most notably, as a Web product, Ask.com has taken great advantage of its inherent interactivity. It has figured out ways for fans to go beyond “awareness” (that awful “brand image” metric) and move to activity, a direct branding touchstone.
The major points in Ask.com’s NASCAR strategy seem to be:
1.) Team & driver sponsorship. This might be the hardest to justify so far. They’re supporting Bobby Labonte, who has appeared in some commercials. But this aspect of their strategy isn’t particularly brilliant. Yet.
2.) Signed on as the “Official Search Engine of NASCAR.” A nice piece of branding because it links up precisely with Item #3.
3.) Providing in-race trivia questions that can only be answered by going to Ask.com. At various points during a race broadcast, the Fox broadcast team will present a trivia question related to that race, the venue, or some extended issue. So far the questions have been pretty good. And they can only be answered by “asking” the question at Ask.com.
From a direct branding point of view, that’s almost picture perfect. Ask.com has created a way for a very loyal, specialized demographic to take a specific action and experience its product in a (presumably) positive way.
Ask.com gets to tap into NASCAR’s notoriously loyal fan base by providing a rare resource (specialized information) at no cost to the fans. It gets to show its wares, demonstrate its advantages and, perhaps, gain new users.
Best of all, the entire experience is trackable. Because they’re posed a fairly specific set of queries, they can reasonably conclude that those search queries likely resulted from the NASCAR exposure. In other words, Ask.com can know how many people took them up on their very direct call for action.
They can safely isolate those queries from the rest of the day’s traffic; follow those queries to other user behaviors (like, making a different kind of query right away); and track repeat users (fans who continue to use Ask.com after race day).
With abundant data mining technology, Ask.com can track results over time and use the data to support its advertising efforts, or any business priority.
This fits the direct branding model precisely:
1.) They’ve made potential visitors aware of their brand (through strategic ad buys)
2.) They’ve developed a compelling call to action
3.) They’ve provided a mechanism for quick response
4.) They’re in a position to use the resulting data for business purposes.
Great direct response branding by Ask.com. Now let’s stay tuned and see if they activate the team and driver sponsorship. (In fairness, they do include a call to action at the end of the Bobby Labonte commercials. Pretty sharp.)
