The continued restructuring over at Yahoo makes for interesting reading. CEO Carol Bartz has generated a lot of buzz by shaking things up at the long adrift internet giant and offering up some blunt, if not salty, language along the way.
Over at CNet, there is a good summary of Bartz's latest remarks, which were made to financial analysts today. One segment grabbed my attention and made me wonder whether Yahoo may be making a bad strategic move.
From this I read that Yahoo is betting on growth in online advertising, thinking that there is turf to be won from television. The only way that I could see this making sense is if you buy into the argument that the pie for interruption-based advertising will continue to remain big. All you need to do is figure out how to convince CMOs that their future customers' eyeballs will be tuned in to Yahoo properties rather than the TV. The "20 keywords" slam goes on to suggest that getting found in search results is less important than the presence you project with your ads.
Our CEO, Chris Baggott, has blogged about this before and has noted the declining importance of display ads versus search marketing.
Time will tell whether Bartz's vision of increased ad revenue prove true. I'm not a gambling person by nature, but I don't think I'd put money on it.
Over at CNet, there is a good summary of Bartz's latest remarks, which were made to financial analysts today. One segment grabbed my attention and made me wonder whether Yahoo may be making a bad strategic move.
"An extroverted engineer looks at your shoes when they are talking to you." Bartz got her biggest laugh of the day with an old joke about engineers, and how she prefers spending time out making sales calls with Yahoo's sales force. This is a key area of differentiation for Yahoo: it says it wants to focus on "high-touch" sales, rather than the algorithmic model that prints money for Google.
The hope is that Yahoo can translate its strength in display advertising to lure revenue from chief marketing officers at big companies thinking about moving a chunk of their advertising spending from television to the Web. For those folks, "your brand is not defined by 20 keywords. You have to put a persona out there," she said, referring to the need for display and/or video advertising. In order to do win that business, however, Yahoo has to take a lot of "friction" out of the Internet ad sales process that just isn't there in the television business.
The hope is that Yahoo can translate its strength in display advertising to lure revenue from chief marketing officers at big companies thinking about moving a chunk of their advertising spending from television to the Web. For those folks, "your brand is not defined by 20 keywords. You have to put a persona out there," she said, referring to the need for display and/or video advertising. In order to do win that business, however, Yahoo has to take a lot of "friction" out of the Internet ad sales process that just isn't there in the television business.
From this I read that Yahoo is betting on growth in online advertising, thinking that there is turf to be won from television. The only way that I could see this making sense is if you buy into the argument that the pie for interruption-based advertising will continue to remain big. All you need to do is figure out how to convince CMOs that their future customers' eyeballs will be tuned in to Yahoo properties rather than the TV. The "20 keywords" slam goes on to suggest that getting found in search results is less important than the presence you project with your ads.
Our CEO, Chris Baggott, has blogged about this before and has noted the declining importance of display ads versus search marketing.
We talk a lot about the failure of advertising here in this blog, 2009 is bringing a huge body of evidence that supports what we all knew to be true: You can't interrupt your way to marketing success...you can only engage your way to success.
Time will tell whether Bartz's vision of increased ad revenue prove true. I'm not a gambling person by nature, but I don't think I'd put money on it.
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