Though the search engine’s approach to publicity in the UK drew some controversy, Jim Lanzone and company are happy with the results.

The start of a humorous advertising campaign in England by Ask.com has drawn some lively criticism on the main website for the promotion. We tossed some questions at Greg Ott, Ask’s VP of Marketing, to try and get a better measure of the campaign’s impact.

Here’s the thing about boldness: you’d better have the chops to back it up. While Ask.com’s anti-Google guerrilla marketing campaign in London’s Underground was outed in record time, indexing of its own campaign site was even close to a record.

Background

Ads appearing in the Tube encouraged bystanders to fight Google’s "information monopoly."

A swiftly-outed faux guerrilla marketing campaign in London by the Ask search engine has drawn positive and negative responses from observers.