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As its rivals create a bigger buzz on the Internet, Yahoo Inc. is hitting television and radio airwaves to remind people that its Web site remains on the cutting edge of technology and culture.The advertising blitz, scheduled to begin Thursday, marks the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company's biggest marketing push in two years.
It didn't really work for Ask. Will be interesting to see if Yahoo! have sufficient brand power to do a little better.
Oh, couldn't leave this bit out (struck me as a little desperate):-
As an added promotional gift, Yahoo will offer coupons for a free cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts to anyone who sets Yahoo.com as their home page this Friday.
Now if it was a free Donut......!
What is yahoo's angle that they're pushing?
Now, I'm not a novice to this computer and Interweb thing, so I was pretty sure the cookies were not the problem, but I still tried it anyway. And you guessed it; it had no effect. So after 30 min on the phone with two tech support staff, I had nothing to show for.
Perhaps the advertising money should be spent elsewhere. It wouldn't be a bad idea to learn from other's mistakes. For example GM (and Ford) has tried hard to bribe people into buying their cars, but it hasn't worked. But I bet if they invested their time and money into making better cars, overtime the momentum would shift. Same idea goes for Yahoo!, or does it?
[edited by: Kufu at 6:45 pm (utc) on Sep. 18, 2006]
This should pay off for Yahoo. They are building on a strong brand already. Beside, you got a better idea?
I thought this was interesting from the AP article: "Google is a very media savvy company," Scott said. "They realize a prime spot on a computer or a Web site can be just as critical as a 30-second spot on prime-time television."
And how. I've always thought that "Ads by Google" on other websites was mostly advertising for Google and they were happy to give you most of the income. From those who have looked at G's disclosures in their going public I've heard that the vast, vast majority of ad income come from the ads clicked-on on their own site, not the website of others. That they have done this promotion at no or zero cost and made so many webmasters happy for it at the same time has got to be one of the great win-wins ever.
I came to be a Yahoo fan late. Their search is as good as G, but what I personally like is Yahoo News--much better than Google. They have editors who pull their materials together, which you can customize.
They even have comics. It's very much like the daily newspaper experience, only better. They have even tried to produce their own content.
If you're not getting your daily news from Yahoo, then who? Google News just can't compare, even with my special filters (and I do look at both every day). Inform is OK, as is Topix. BBC is very good if you're more internationally driven, but I have a US news bias. I do use WSJ.com for biz news.
I am a fan of the NYT. I subscribe, even. But, Yahoo has NYT news on it and puts it into context with AP and CNN.
If no one else will say it, I will first: Good luck to Y, somebody needs to take on G.
Anyways, besides Yahoo Finance I think Yahoo is pretty much a hopeless case. Their spider causes 80% off all bot traffic on my site but brings in only 5% of the traffic. Wait a minute, maybe that's because I have AdSense? I just wish their anti-AdSense filter would affect their spidering, too, not just the ranking.
So no Donuts for me...
How many new comers do the other non advertising search engines bring in? Its hard to tell
But if Yahoo swells its user base with new comers, well who thinks their business will be worse off because of this,
Or do you think every other se should just pack its bags an leave the field to the local giant,
As an analogy, imagine a USA with only Wal-mart stores, UK with only ASDa's, then France,,,,,,,
"... to remind people that its Web site remains on the cutting edge of technology and culture. Yahoo will offer coupons for a free cup of coffee at Dunkin' Donuts ..."
Dunkin Donuts is where your butt-crack plumber gets his coffee and donuts.
Cutting-edge customers go to Starbucks and other premium places with appropriate snob-appeal.
I am not knocking DD, but culturally this marketing move is a major mismatch.
Is Yahoo now going for the low-end of the market having lost the high-end to Google and MySpace?
I'm not kidding.
{Extra shot of expresso, please!}
Creative advertising is a funny thing, one suspects any business must go thru many advertising pitches before they find one that truely works for that business,
Beside, you got a better idea?
Than the free coffee? Yes.
Create some open interaction with webmasters. The bunker mentality they have is extremely frustrating and it cannot be helping their search product.
Maybe even post here at WebmasterWorld once in a blue moon. Their most recent update was a very big one and not even one post in the thread from a Yahoo representative.
Improve their search results by asking for and actually listening to feed back from people who use their search engine.
Move on from handing out death penalties. They started it back when the directory ruled the search world and they have never stopped. It’s an old approach and their results suffer from the amount of sites that are no longer there.
Act like they care when it comes to providing customer service. Ever try and get a problem solved with them?
There’s a very big, influential community of people right here that they should get on better terms with. That’s the first place to start.
We really need these guys to provide some competition, it would benefit all. Free coffees great but I would settle for some actual interaction with these people, and guess what it's free to do.
You asked, and are the coupons for a large or small cup?
Creative advertising is a funny thing. One suspects any business must go through many advertising pitches before they find one that truly works for that business.
(Yahoo should) create some open interaction with webmasters. The bunker mentality they have is extremely frustrating, and it cannot be helping their search product. Maybe even post here at WebmasterWorld once in a blue moon. Their most recent update was a very big one, and not even one post in the thread from a Yahoo representative.
Yahoo tries to lead sheep by appealing to the lowest common denominator, and in so doing, reinforces their cold, corporate image that's reminiscent of the IBM guy in the Apple commercials. WebmasterWorld has forums devoted to Google AdSense and Google AdWords, and in them you will find Google representatives who not only monitor the threads there, and not only forward people's comments and suggestions on to other Google employees who need to know about them, but they also provide helpful insight, and they do it cordially and with appreciation.
Improve their search results by asking for and actually listening to feedback from people who use their search engine. Move on from handing out death penalties. They started it back when the directory ruled the search world and they have never stopped. It’s an old approach and their results suffer from the amount of sites that are no longer there. Act like they care when it comes to providing customer service. Ever try and get a problem solved with them? There’s a very big, influential community of people right here that they should get on better terms with. That’s the first place to start. We really need these guys to provide some competition, it would benefit all. Free coffees great but I would settle for some actual interaction with these people, and guess what it's free to do.
Are the coupons for a large or small cup?
Act like they care when it comes to providing customer service. Ever try and get a problem solved with them?
See my post above. I tried getting a simple Premium Mail issue resolved and it took me half an hour on the phone to get nowhere. :)
Brilliant!
Maybe I'll feel better after I have a cup of coffee.
I used to use Yahoo mail, and spent hours blocking domains from dirtbag domain collectors in my Yahoo spam filter, and filled it to its limit. (For all I know, Yahoo was profiting by allowing the spammers to continue.) Then Yahoo responded not by blocking the weasels but by offering a premium service with more spam filtering. There were so few takers that they gave in and upgraded everyone's account. (After all, look at all the slow-loading banner ads they have all over the place.) And somebody flipped a switch, and the serial spammers somehow just vanished.
A key part of Google's success is that they fully understand the importance of the quality of the users' experience. And when I think back on the times I've used Yahoo for anything, anything positive that may have occurred gets overwritten by the negative. There is just nothing that Yahoo offers that you can't get better somewhere else.
Coffee for mediocrity. What ignorance.
1st , lemme state that I admire Google's success in search and business,,,
2nd , I'll ask you guys a question
Hypothesis: we have an large , Independently governed island, with 1 airport, 1 seaport, 1 factory making canned sardines for example, now the seaport, airport, and factory which employs 90% off the inhabitants who CANNOT leave the island . All three, airport , seaport an factory are owned by the same company, BigCO inc
In this situation
1, does BigCo treat its employees with generousity, give them every thing they want, holidays, etc etc
2, does BigCo pay its employees top dollar, after all they can ,,, apply to the remaining 10% of the economy
Over to you guys
Imagine paying hundred dollars a year to be listed in their whats becoming a worthless directory, or paying hundreds of thousands and more of year via their ppc service, and you can't be found in their 'search' because your sites been banned. I bet half the internet is missing from yahoo at this point from bans. What kinda company bans their own customers in such large numbers?
As webmasters we should all take our free cups of coffee, wait till coffee has cooled a little and dump the coffee on their heads as a wake up call. They defenitely need it.
If nothing changes, they are headed for bankruptcy.
They're businesses , just like you an me :-)
They're businesses , just like you an me :-)
Well hopefully you listen to your customers needs and react positively when your customers have a problem with your business.
Yahoo does not do this! They could care less!
But , I've used their forums , they're quite responsive to postings
Overture/ysm, they take a while to respond, but eventually get back to you,
Now site explorer is a very good communication system
