• by Kate Kaye , June 7, 2004

Will staunch supporters switch search engines to support their team? That's what search provider LookSmart and the University of California, Berkeley's Department of Intercollegiate Athletics are hoping. The two have paired up to create a branded Web search property for Cal Athletics that will divert portions of paid listings revenue to fund the university's athletic programs.

Through the agreement, LookSmart will provide results for CalBears Search, starting this summer. When users click on paid listings appearing throughout the LookSmart distribution network, a portion of that ad revenue will be added to Cal coffers. Bears backers visiting CalBears.com and CalBearsSearch.com as well as those using a toolbar application will be able to access the affinity search program. The branded affinity search engine will also list text articles from publications, databases, and encyclopedias, otherwise made available by LookSmart only at Looksmart.com. The CalBears.com Web site gets 150,000 unique visitors each month, according to Director of Corporate Partnerships for Cal Athletics, Solomon Fulp.

The pairing of affinity marketing with search "was probably to be expected," suggests Fredrick Marckini, CEO of search marketing company iProspect. Although he was surprised to see the beleaguered LookSmart pioneer the space, Marckini admits that doing so "gives LookSmart a foothold in a place they haven't yet explored."

While the LookSmart.com site accounts for a minute amount of search market share, the company distributes its search listings through various partners including Lycos, CNET, and InfoSpace, which includes Dogpile, MetaCrawler, and other sites. According to a February 2004 report from comScore Media Metrix, Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN, and Time Warner's AOL account for 94 percent of all searches conducted by U.S. Internet users. Ask Jeeves garners just over 3 percent, while Lycos, AltaVista, and InfoSpace each account for less than 2 percent.

Explains Dakota Sullivan, VP of Marketing for LookSmart: "We thought if we could provide a high-quality search experience and link it to something people were passionate about, they would make the switch." The company has no other affinity search partners at the moment according to Sullivan.

LookSmart has turned its attention toward the academic and family-friendly markets of late; in April the firm acquired Net Nanny, a parental filtering control software outfit. Now LookSmart is betting that the donation incentive will entice Cal alums and team fanatics to ditch their search engines of habit. According to iProspect's May 2004 Search Engine User Attitudes Survey, 56.7 percent of respondents said they usually use the same search engine.

"The Cal fan is a very, very loyal fan," stresses Cal Athletics's Fulp. "We felt they'd appreciate the opportunity to have a branded search engine where they can actively use it on a daily basis and support their athletics program." In addition to building awareness of the fund-raising opportunity through a radio, print, and Web campaign, Fulp anticipates that enthusiasm for the program will be generated through promotions taking place during athletic events.

Fulp also jokes that the fierce rivalry between Stanford University and UC Berkeley--particularly during "The Big Game," the annual football match between the California Golden Bears and Stanford Cardinal--may add fuel to the search fund-raising fire. After all, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin developed the Google technology while studying at Stanford University. The anti-Stanford sentiment felt by CalBears fans, says Fulp, "might get them to reconsider their search engine."

The rich Internet technology legacy of the San Francisco Bay area and UC Berkeley was one reason why LookSmart approached the school with its affinity search idea. (Both Apple Computer Co-founder Steve Wozniak and Andrew Tanenbaum, creator of Linux-precursor Minix attended UC Berkeley.) Adds Fulp: "The athletics partnership makes the most sense because it's the most visible entity for the university."

The question remains: what are the chances that Google or Yahoo! users will switch to use Cal's branded search or other affinity search sites? That depends on how loyal the audience is, opines iProspect's Marckini. He believes that LookSmart's new partnership is worth watching, but cautions: "One event does not a trend make. ... If this adds up to 20 or 30 fiercely loyal groups who will use a search engine because of its ability to support a cause, you've got market share."