UPDATE:Yahoo Unveils New Ad Campaign In Turnaround Bid
September 23 2009 - 2:59AM
Dow Jones News
Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) on Tuesday unveiled a new marketing campaign
designed to promote the relationship between the struggling
Internet giant, its users, and advertisers, as well as revive its
stale image.
The new campaign, centered on the catch phrase, "It's Y!ou," is
part of a renewed focus by Chief Executive Carol Bartz to revive
the company's online advertising business, which continues to
deteriorate amid the economic downturn and heightened competition
from market leader Google Inc. (GOOG). Chief Marketing Officer
Elisa Steele said the company plans to spend more than $100 million
on the global push, and has already laid out plans for at least the
next 15 months.
"We don't believe anyone else can own this message in the
marketplace," Steele said during a press conference on Tuesday.
Since joining Yahoo in January, Bartz has tried to revive the
struggling Internet giant by restructuring management, shedding
non-core assets, striking a search pact with Microsoft Corp. (MSFT)
and shifting resources toward its biggest properties, such as its
flagship home page and e-mail service. Bartz told investors this
summer the company was planning a major ad campaign this quarter to
regain some of Yahoo's lost luster.
The move comes months after Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) launched its
own $100 million marketing campaign for its Bing search engine,
which it introduced earlier this summer to challenge Google. Yahoo
and Microsoft entered into a 10-year search partnership agreement
in July, as the players look to take on market leader Google.
Yahoo and Microsoft are seen facing intense antitrust scrutiny
over their deal. Bartz said she doesn't see any change in the
regulatory environment and stands by its targets. The companies
previously said they expect the deal to close in early 2010.
Yahoo's campaign marks the first time in almost five years that
the Internet giant has launched a major marketing effort, Piper
Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said. He added that the company's
brand has since gone "a little bit cold," particularly compared
with start-ups such as social network Facebook Inc. and
micro-blogging service Twitter Inc., which have captured the
attention of consumers and the media.
"They need to remind people that they are still relevant,"
Munster said.
But the ad campaign will likely have little lasting impact if
Yahoo's effort to revamp consumer products fails to make its core
Web properties more compelling to users.
The company recently unveiled a redesigned homepage, as well as
a series of upgrades to its e-mail, instant messaging and Internet
search pages, part of its plan to revive its online advertising
business which has been hit hard during the economic downturn.
The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company said in July its
second-quarter revenue fell 13% as the Internet portal's online
advertising business continued to deteriorate.
Yahoo boasts that more than 500 million people visit the
Internet giant every month and that people spend 12% of their
online time at Yahoo sites. Steele said the company hopes to add
new customers and defend its franchise. Yahoo said the goals are
different depending on the region, noting that emerging markets
represents an untapped area, while the company is looking to
protect its user base in the Asia-Pacific region.
The ad campaign was rushed for Ad Week in New York, a period in
which advertisers typically set their budgets for the latter part
of the year, a point that analysts said was clearly not lost on
Yahoo.
"This is more targeted to advertisers and agencies than
consumers," said Colin Gillis, analyst at Brigantine Advisors.
Gillis said advertisers were eager to hear how Yahoo intended to
make it easier for them to buy ads on the Internet portal's many
properties.
"Consumers want good advertising," Bartz said, adding that the
company is making it easier for companies to deliver more relevant
ads. "This partnership of engaged users is what Yahoo stands
for."
Still, others downplayed the relevance of the new campaign.
"It's irrelevant," Gillis said. "The real issue is to get more
good engineers and reinvent the site."
-By Roger Cheng and Scott Morrison, Dow Jones Newswires;
212-416-2153; roger.cheng@dowjones.com
(John Kell contributed to this report.)
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