Charette was selected in a competitive bid setting to write, design and deploy an extensive advertising site makeover to Emeryville, California-based search engine Ask Jeeves. The fifth largest search engine on the internet, Jeeves had been struggling with trying to present and differentiate over 12 different ad products to clients — a dizzying array.

The Keyword in Search

The first task was to distill and distinguish Jeeves's unique strengths through a pre-launch collateral campaign. Working with writers Julie Marcus and Susan Carp from The Imagineering Company, The Keyword in Search tagline was developed from a myriad of finalists. The headline perfectly captured Jeeves's early adoption of search keyword purchasing, a practice now widely copied. We then set forth with Jeeves's ad sales management to organize and pare down "the butler's" ad products to a more manageable suite of eight ad products including Traditional Units, Premier Listings™, Branded Response™, and the exciting Branded Animation.™

Only then could site development in ernest begin. With the above completed, Charette moved into information architecture, preliminary design and writing copy. Our programmers worked closely with AJ's technical staff to insure that coding, meta and scripting language would marry seamlessly with the huge search engine's servers and protocols.

Cross Publishing Helps Close Sales

The Ask Jeeves sales team had been spending far too much time fulfilling data sheet requests from prospects. As part of the Advertising site, Charette developed highly detailed, designed electronic deliverables in both PDF and Microsoft Word formats for quick downloads of their ad product types. This had the benefit of instantaneous delivery and reduced printing costs.

The Butler Has Legs

The Ask Jeeves Advertising site has been broadcasting for over 15 months, providing a strong foundation for scaling and core message communication. The site and collateral kit won a 2002 California Beacon Advertising Award