Yahoo starts new campaign for new site search

recapturing ground lost to Google

[vitaplease]

Yahoo searches for the public eye [businessweek.com]

Yahoo on Monday will blanket billboards, radio and TV broadcasts in major U.S. cities to promote its newly updated Web search technology, a move aimed at recapturing ground lost to rival Google and attracting new visitors

[gopi]

Paramount to Yahoo's marketing campaign is an Internet-connected billboard in Times Square, which will reaches up the side of a 22-story building. The billboard will flash live search queries from people in cities around the country, including San Francisco, Honolulu and New York

Copycat of the Live Search Query Display at Googleplex ... Nevertheless its an intresting form of advertisement and sure will create a lot of buzz in big apple ...

IMHO , google missed a good promotion opportunity!

[jeremy goodrich]

While this does sound interesting, I wonder if this type of marketing will do what Yahoo expects?

If it does, do you think Google would follow suite, once they have a bit more money...? Or go public?

We had a thread a while back on Google commercial ideas, I recall...if / when Google decides to go the main stream commercial advertising route, it'll be interesting to see if they follow up on any of the ideas batted around here.

[gopi]

I believe that Google will not start any major multi-media Ad campaign until Yahoo retains it as its main Search provider... The reason i assume is a user who switches to google from yahoo will not see much difference in SERP quality so there is no real USP to stress on the ads (except for the less cluttered look)!

On the other hand a Google user switched to yahoo by the Ad now may feel more happy since the SERP is the same quality (99% dont know its supplied by google so they assume its yahoo generated) and also the nice add ons like yellow page results (which is very important in local service searches).

For this same reason i assume yahoo will not go for Inktomi atleast until it can gain a significant market share or Ink algo is developed comparable to google .

But still i think , that live search billboard is a missed oppurtunity by google as it has a lot of potential to create buzz in the local media and also do not cost that much!

[edited by: gopi at 6:55 pm (utc) on May 19, 2003]

[jeremy goodrich]

When I lived in New York, it seemed *every* tourist went to Times Square on the weekends, and saw the billboards, etc.

That will generate a ton of impressions for Yahoo. Whethor or not they convert - will be interesting to see.

[hutcheson]

Times Square ... Targeting the e-porn niche audience, I presume, and perhaps filtering the searches without adult keywords?

[chiyo]

OK, I think the Monday US promotion blitz is almost over. Intreested to know if anybody is seeing a major increase in Y! referrals, especially those sites who have large US readership. I have to wait a few more hours to get our daily report so will provide our data soon.

[gopi]

My Yahoo Referrals remained more or less the same yesterday! ...

i think we have to wait for alteast a month or two to measure any increase... Branding campaigns are effective ony with reptetion and so it takes time!

[Tor]

No significant increase of Yahoo refferals for our two US sites either....

[vitaplease]

>>No significant increase of Yahoo refferals..

The tourists at time square typed in "Jahooe" in Google and could not find Yahoo.

[Tor]

:) :) :) That explains it all Vitaplease!

[2_much]

I'm just amazed at how Yahoo has been copying Google, step by step by step. Blatantly copying.