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November 10, 2008

I Have Some "Nagging Questions" About Ask.com's Bizarre Commercials

Apparently Ask.com rolled out this campaign in October, but they seem to be playing the commercials mostly during sports games, so I missed this one until last night, when I rewound and re-played it five times, just trying to understand "Why?":

Why is the music so sad? Why is she obese? More important: why is she BRITISH? That's the real kicker when asking WTF about this commercial.

Posted by Lindsay at 1:00 PM in ,
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13 Comments

Fat people ask too many questions.

Posted by: DanBlurns profile link at 11/10/08 1:04 PM | Reply
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grace6697

has anyone seen the one with the vaguely southasian guy attached the to the pregnant woman who asks about bad gas and sex? is it just me or does it look and sound like a brown-faced larry david?

Posted by: grace6697 profile link at 11/10/08 1:37 PM | Reply
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adrienne

yeah, I have. This woman being British is about as weird as the pregnant woman's nagging questions being a 60 year old indian man. Personally, I think these commercials are just weird all around. It's Ask's attempt to be quirky and get noticed.

Posted by: adrienne profile link in reply to grace6697's comment at 11/10/08 2:23 PM | Reply
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bingo gas station

Naggers/Nagging questions on your mind are fat, annoying and always British.

Posted by: bingo gas station profile link at 11/10/08 1:37 PM | Reply
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what

My nagging question: Why are search engines still trying to beat google?

Posted by: what profile link at 11/10/08 3:45 PM | Reply
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I PEE GOLD

Mine: "How do I get this Goliath off my back?"

Posted by: I PEE GOLD profile link in reply to what's comment at 11/10/08 5:58 PM | Reply
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I thought that that was the fat person's head (instead of the kid's) from the screencap, I was prepared for a much more bizarre video.

Posted by: Chadams at 11/10/08 9:24 PM | Reply
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Well, the logic appears to be as many humorous negations as possible: brown instead of white, male instead of female, fat instead of thin, accented instead of uh, non-accented, etc. Of course, that doesn't excuse making the brown guy or the fat woman the comedic other.

Posted by: Punky Brewster at 11/10/08 9:38 PM | Reply
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grace6697

yeah, i still don't get it.

Posted by: grace6697 profile link at 11/10/08 11:28 PM | Reply
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I'm guessing she's British because Ask was originally Ask Jeeves.com (i.e an English butler) but the obese bit is just odd!

Posted by: Sam at 11/13/08 10:08 PM | Reply
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Why would a company like Ask think that the only way to win versus Google is to create nuttier commercials?

Posted by: Bob Gilbreath at 12/02/08 4:55 PM | Reply
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I hardly think the weirdest thing about the ad is that she is British. I'd say its the paedo-aspect that is far more worrying but I would say that, being British.
Let me say, we have enough fat Americans on our TV so I guess it's just an attempt to even things up a bit.

Posted by: Ubergill at 12/04/08 9:47 AM | Reply
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Whats that one commercial where the son (i think the son) asks if the milk is still good and the dad tastes it and goes "not for you guys.." haha, i love that one and have searched everywhere but cant find it!

Posted by: zech at 03/03/09 2:10 PM | Reply
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