Lycos Launches Ads

Hill, Holliday, Connors, Cosmopulos’ first branding campaign for Lycos Network portrays the client as not merely a search engine, but a means of “digging deeper” into subjects users care about.

The multimedia push uses the line “Whatever you’re into, dig into it deeper. On Lycos,” and comes just a few weeks before Waltham, Mass.-based Lycos’ $12.5 billion acquisition by Spain’s Terra Networks is set to close.

Lycos’ annual budget is not finalized, but spending for the current campaign, which began rolling out over the weekend, will be about $20 million, said Jim Corboy, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Lycos.

A trio of 30-second spots targeting 18-34 year-olds focuses on Lycos’ offerings in the areas of music, shopping and games. The music entry, titled “Skeet,” presents a guy “traumatized” by his stepfather who used his son’s heavy metal CDs for skeet shooting. Now in his 20s, the young man takes his revenge through Lycos by downloading raucous rock music for his greying stepdad, who sits listening through headphones, a pained expression on his face.

Spots close with the image of a black Labrador retriever apparently “digging up” the ground for in-depth information. A similar canine appeared in Lycos’ “Go get it” campaigns, crafted the past few years by Bozell, New York.

Hill, Holliday was tapped to replace Bozell following a review this summer.