Wow. Once again, I’m disappointed with Ask. They’re still spending millions of dollars on these stupid advertisements! I’ll give them some credit because their decent ads that show some benefits Ask has over others, but in reference to my post about Super Bowl ads, why do they waste money on this?

Ask is an internet company, yet they choose to advertise via billboard and TV. People aren’t likely to change their normal way of doing things just because they saw this advertisement. And even if they did, how is Ask supposed to measure the success, demographics, etc… of the visitors coming from these ads? They can’t.

Everybody says that Ask’s goal in advertising is to bring traffic to their site. I’ve spoken to a few Ask employees about this, and they claim that the ads are actually meant to build up brand value. Traffic isn’t their first priority. My personal concern – they’ve been running these ads forever! When will they actually get something accomplished? A 4-5% profit decrease per year doesn’t justify the millions spent on this form of marketing.

My personal take? Build a product that doesn’t directly compete with Google. It doesn’t matter if your algorithm or website is better or easier because Google already has recognition as being the market leader. Find a specific audience to target and a new niche/market to go after. It doesn’t matter that bloggers like me are writing them up if they can’t manage to convert it to dollars and cents.

For your entertainment, here’s an advertisement:

In response to a comment #9 on TechCrunch, I agree – The money spent on advertising could have been spent on database storage or pay for research/development in a better product.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She’s currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, SimonsRockers.com, and Jessicamah.com.