Ask.Com Debuts New Advertising Campaign Featuring Dr. Apostolos Gerasoulis

Ask.Com Debuts New Advertising Campaign Featuring Dr. Apostolos Gerasoulis

Television Campaign Features the Site's Founding Technologist in Unscripted Ads

OAKLAND, Calif., May 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Ask.com today unveiled a new advertising campaign featuring its own Dr. Apostolos Gerasoulis, the creator of the popular Internet search engine's core technologies. The ads are next in the ongoing marketing initiative to support Ask.com (formerly Ask Jeeves), which was recently re-launched with a new brand, a new design and new search tools.

Completely unscripted and without actors, the series of non-traditional ads feature Gerasoulis discussing and demonstrating how Ask.com's unique search tools work. Example searches include "poetry," "bear attacks," and "pimped out cars." In one spot, Dr. Gerasoulis is accompanied by his 9-year old son, Eli. The television ads will run on networks and cable, during morning, prime time and late night programming, beginning today.

"Apostolos built many of our unique search tools because he genuinely believed he could make search better, so there's no one more appropriate to communicate the unique value Ask.com brings to the market," said Greg Ott, Ask.com's vice president of marketing. "In addition, Apostolos has a one-of-a-kind personality that comes shining through in these ads."

The new ads were created by Berlin Cameron United of New York.

Better known as "A.G.," Gerasoulis was born in a small Greek village and came to the United States to pursue his graduate education. Over time, he became increasingly interested in applied mathematics and, eventually, search engines. During his tenure as a professor at Rutgers University, he began reading research papers about search engines and turned his pursuit of finding a better way to search the Web into a class project. The result was the patented ExpertRank algorithm, which now makes Ask.com one of the world's most powerful and unique search engines. Gerasoulis' breakthrough with ExpertRank was discovering a process to measure the popularity of Web pages among experts on a topic. Ask.com is the first and only search engine to apply such a process. This technology has also been leveraged to create some of Ask's most popular features, including Image Search and Zoom Related Search.

Most of the endearing ads begin with Gerasoulis waving affably at the camera from the front door of his actual home in New Jersey. In the first spot, "Librarian," Gerasoulis explains how librarians have always been drawn to Ask.com because of its unique ability to cluster information. He states, "If librarians love us, I think the world should love us too." In another spot, entitled "Bear Attack," Gerasoulis shows, in an unintentionally comical manner, how the search engine can help you find information quickly and feel "comfortable," even in life-threatening situations.

In a third spot, entitled "Rims," Gerasoulis shows how Ask.com provides a better search experience and how it can even keep you "in the know" about pop culture, or any other subject. As Gerasoulis submits a query for "Rims," he's able to discuss the topic without even knowing its meaning, guided only by the Ask.com search results page.

More spots in the series have been produced and will be introduced at a later date.

To view the commercials please go to: http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/televisionads.shtml.

About Ask.com

A leading search engine on the Web, Ask.com combines world-class search technology with one-of-a-kind search tools to help people get what they are looking for faster. Ask.com sites include Ask.com US (www.Ask.com), Ask.com Deutschland, Ask.com Espana, Ask.com Japan and Ask.com UK. Additionally, Ask.com syndicates its search technology and advertising units to a network of affiliate partners. Ask.com is a division of IAC Search & Media, a wholly-owned business of IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Source: Ask.com

CONTACT: Patrick Crisp of Ask.com, +1-510-985-7696, or patrick@ask.com;
or Michelle Andersen of Dotted Line Communications, +1-415-292-3677, or
michelle@dottedlinecomm.com, for Ask.com

Web site: http://www.ask.com/

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