Planet Web: Jeeves Goes Home

SAN FRANCISCO (02/11/2000) - Finally, Jeeves is going home. The natural-language search engine with the same name as the upper-crust English manservant created by P.G. Wodehouse will make its U.K. debut on Feb. 24, when Calif.-based AskJeeves.com launches its first international venture.

There's a touch of irony in Jeeves' return to Britain. For years, he has been a symbol of England's rigid class structure. Now, Jeeves is about to become a cartoon figure in a sector of the British economy that's powered by Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair's vision of a classless society. At the same time, introducing Jeeves to a society that thinks it already knows him highlights the problems many companies face when they step onto the global stage: Namely, should they appeal to one world audience or do they need to reinvent themselves for different regional markets?

"We realize that information is incredibly local," says George Lichter, president of AskJeeves International. "To go global, we had to go local."

It's what Martin Irvine, director of the communication, culture and technology program at Georgetown University, describes as a growing trend. "There is an aggregation of regional economies around the world," he says. From China to Germany to Argentina, domestic Internet companies and consumers still look to the U.S. for direction and ideas, but they want to build an online world in their own image.

It's critical for an expanding search engine-portal to gain a deep understanding of regional markets. Such an understanding is especially important for AskJeeves: The company's reputation rests on its ability to grasp colloquial language. That's why the company has staffed the U.K. site with homegrown employees and allied with British Carlton Communications and Granada Media Group in a $125 million venture to guarantee an authentic site. It needs to overcome the "you say tomahto" cultural hurdle that Lichter sums up as "two peoples separated by a common language." Recently, AskJeeves spent $532 million for Direct Hit, a highly automated search engine that can improve its offerings around the world.

Typically at this point in any story about AskJeeves, the writer pokes fun at the company by trying to confuse its natural-language search engine. Not one to pass on a cheap shot, I put the U.K. Jeeves to my Brit vocabulary test. I was pleasantly surprised. The site could point me to the best "chip shop" in Manchester, and it knew exactly how to answer "where can I see the Spurs?" - a London soccer team that plays at White Hart Lane. Jeeves fell short, however, when I asked the meaning of the phrase "sticky wicket." Up popped a Star Wars site. (Perhaps that's what happens to expats like myself who stay in the states too long.) So it's pretty good. But could Jeeves' upper-class image put the company on a sticky wicket? "The idea [of Jeeves] is not so much of upper class but of personal service," says Lichter. He agrees that people in the U.K. will form different associations with Jeeves than will their U.S. counterparts. To him, what's fun about AskJeeves is that "we take the notion of what was once the province of the upper class and open it up for everyone. Isn't that the essence of technology?"

At least most people in the U.K. recognize Jeeves. So much so, that Wodehouse's agents are currently in discussions with AskJeeves concerning the company's use of the name.

Imagine, on the other hand, trying to market the company in a land where no one has any associations with Jeeves at all. As AskJeeves International extends beyond the U.K.'s borders into France, Germany, Japan and Argentina, company executives have been busily conducting consumer research on the role of a manservant and meaning of service in those markets. In Japan, says Lichter, consumers already understand Jeeves' role, thanks to another literary savior:

Batman. "[Bruce Wayne's butler] Alfred's been so successful," he says. Still, AskJeeves has been researching traditional Japanese symbols of personal service, including certain Buddhist monks, and Lichter says AskJeeves could conceivably adopt different brands according to the target regions. "In line with our belief that local is important, we discount nothing," he says.

So despite Jeeves' current starring role, the long-suffering butler may yet discover what a fickle creature fame can be. Already, the U.S. and U.K sides of the company have both dropped the name Jeeves from their sites, preferring Ask.com and Ask.co.uk, respectively, even though the character of Jeeves is still on display.

This isn't all that strange; companies are forever changing their images.

"Brand names quickly take on the role of proper names," says Georgetown's Irvine. "What does Amazon mean now? What does Ford mean?" Often, Irvine points out, U.S. companies want to disassociate themselves from their American origins in order to compete abroad. "AOL is a good comparison," he says, "It has detached the signifier 'America' from its name."

For now, at least, Jeeves remains a virtual personality to be reckoned with.

And now that he's back in Britain, at least his spelling will improve.

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