Brand report- Yahoo

8/7/2019 Brand report- Yahoo

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Yahoos decline and Ideas for Rebranding 2010

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History of YAHOO!

Yahoo! began as a student hobby and evolved into a global brand that has changed the way people

communicate with each other, find and access information and purchase things. The two founders

of Yahoo!, David Filo and Jerry Yang, Ph.D. candidates in Electrical Engineering at Stanford

University, started their guide in a campus trailer in February 1994 as a way to keep track of their

personal interests on the Internet. Before long they were spending more time on their home-

brewed lists of favorite links than on their doctoral dissertations. Eventually, Jerry and David's lists

became too long and unwieldy, and they broke them out into categories. When the categories

became too full, they developed subcategories ... and the core concept behind Yahoo! was born.

The Web site started out as "Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web" but eventually

received a new moniker with the help of a dictionary. The name Yahoo! is an acronym for "Yet

Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle," but Filo and Yang insist they selected the name because they

liked the general definition of a yahoo: "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth." Yahoo! itself first resided

on Yang's student workstation, "Akebono," while the software was lodged on Filo's computer,

"Konishiki" - both named after legendary sumo wrestlers.

Jerry and David soon found they were not alone in wanting a single place to find useful Web sites.

Before long, hundreds of people were accessing their guide from well beyond the Stanford trailer.

Word spread from friends to what quickly became a significant, loyal audience throughout the

closely-knit Internet community. Yahoo! celebrated its first million-hit day in the fall of 1994,

translating to almost 100 thousand unique visitors.

Due to the torrent of traffic and enthusiastic reception Yahoo! was receiving, the founders knew

they had a potential business on their hands. In March 1995, the pair incorporated the business and

met with dozens of Silicon Valley venture capitalists. They eventually came across Sequoia Capital,

the well-regarded firm whose most successful investments included Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle

and Cisco Systems. They agreed to fund Yahoo! in April 1995 with an initial investment of nearly $2

million. Realizing their new company had the potential to grow quickly, Jerry and David began to

shop for a management team. They secured a second round of funding in Fall 1995 from investors

Reuters Ltd. and Softbank. Yahoo! launched a highly-successful IPO in April 1996 with a total of 49

employees.

Today, Yahoo! Inc. is a leading global Internet communications, commerce and media company that

offers a comprehensive branded network of services to more than 345 million individuals each

month worldwide. As the first online navigational guide to the Web, www.yahoo.com is the leading

guide in terms of traffic, advertising, household and business user reach. Yahoo! is the No. 1 Internet

brand globally and reaches the largest audience worldwide. The company also provides online

business and enterprise services designed to enhance the productivity and Web presence of

Yahoo!'s clients. Yahoo! is more focused on keyword density and keywords in the URL and title tags

than other websites such as Google and MSN. The Yahoo Search index captures the full text of web

pages, which has a limit of 500K. Included in this 500K limit of text is a broad range of file types that

also appear in the web pages such as HTML, PDF, and Microsoft Office documents. To index

websites, Yahoo! uses a software program which has been given the term Robot Crawlers. The

specific robot crawler that Yahoo! uses in its search engine is called Yahoo! crawler, which is only

half as active as Googles robot crawler. The Yahoo! crawler attempts to understand how often

documents change. The more often documents are crawled, the more frequently documents are

changes. Although Yahoo! has not specified how big its index is, some research has been done to

determine Yahoo!s index size; one Yahoo search result reported more than 2.1 billion documents

found, which is only half as large as Googles index. Yahoo! also has an advanced search option,


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where one can specify and refine their search so that the results will be more accurate. Although this

option is offered by Yahoo!, it is quite difficult to actually find this search option as it is not on the

main page of Yahoo! Search. Yahoo also offers three paid inclusion programs, which are Inktomi,

Altavista, and AlltheWeb. Although all three have played an important role in assuring a broad range

of coverage for the search engine, the new Yahoo Search Index has only included Inktomis search

submit and index connect as the paid inclusion programs

Decline of YAHOO!

Thought there is no singular incident to which the failure of YAHOO! can be attributed, rather there

were a host of events, mismanagement and oversights which led to the decline of this once internet

giant. Numerous research, analyses and expert opinions show that yahoo was on the path of doom

since the year 1996 itself, as they were mostly concerned about money and milking their clients to

the maximum extent possible with lesser focus on quality and technology.


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Brand Equity

David Aaker said, Brand Equity is a result of Brand awareness, loyalty and brand

associations. Where Yahoo failed is Brand association.

Yahoo was never a technology leader. It was merely the first in the market. With Googles

emergence Yahoos downfall was inevitable, since Googles offering were technologically

superior and also captured the unstated needs of the growing inte rned audience. Yahoos

strength was its personal appeal, cheerfulness and wholesome look. These were also

getting dusty and hence Yahoo lost its lustre when competitors like Google and MSN began

to grow. Hence a rebranding effort was needed to build back t he lost glory of google, based

on its strengths of the personal appeal.

Brand Associations

1. Quality/Values Yahoo was slower in comparison to Google

2. Uses Smaller tools/services package as compared to Google

randE uity

wareness was there

L yalty Tec

l gy

s

isticati

ase

Ass ciati

s reasons for

Brand Failure


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Googles gamut of features are vast compared to Yahoo. But Yahoos catching up gradually. But the

impetus should be on focussing more on the available tools & core competencies like messenger,

finance tools, directory, Flickr etc. and enrich user experience through richer aesthetically more

appealing media.

Users Research by Hitwises Heather Hopkins

1. Yahoo Search users skew younger than Googles

2. Aspiring Contemporaries are over-indexed on Yahoo, whereas Affluent Suburbia is over-

indexed on Google.

3. According to Nielsen figures, Googles share of searches was 62%, compared with less than 18%

for Yahoo

4. Bottom-line : Google has a more varied set of users vis--vis Yahoo.

Organizational attributes

1. Yahoos a lot more conservative. Traditional investments, technologies while

Google is open, entrepreneurial & a laboratory

2. Here are figures from UBSs report on Yahoos & Googles hiring trendsa. Both are advertising for positions focused on video. Google is looking for online

video advertising, video advertising and search and television initiatives. Yahoos

focus for video seems to be on a better user experience, rich media and using video

throughout the network.

b. Yahoo is hiring folks for behavioural and geo-targeted ads.

c. 70 % of Yahoos open positions relate to operations and research and development,

up from 61 % a year ago.


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Yah s decli e and Ideas forRebranding 2010

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3 Botto -lin : Yahoohas ri h r media, for the lo ali ed, personali ed content vis- -vis

Goo

lestechie tools andspeed

hi

hfunctionalit

features

Br

d Perso

lit

as wasbefore t e It

s You Campaign

The proble with Yahoo was that itscore appeal of Sincerity!

& Excite ent which were the initial

brand associationss " ffered as they did not evolve with the growing industry # With respect to

competitors$ the industrystarted seeming dull and not powerfully positioned on anyspecific

personality- association. The Itsyou campaign had much revitalized the look of Yahoo and brough

back life into the brand.


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Whats requiredto Resonate with customers??

Voice of customers = Stated + unstated needs

1. Charming & cheerful2. Ease of usage3. Simple and clean user interface4. Relevant search5. ID space requirements

6. Speed

7. Suggestions and User-adaptive search

8. User friendly: Intuitive tools

9. Package of services: maps, analytics and docs, picture sharing etc.

The above 4 highlighted points were where Yahoo was strong and had its core value proposition.

These were lost as Google came in with both superior technology and also a fairly aesthetic appeal.

Yahoo lost out on all grounds and so began its decline.

Parameters Google Yahoo

Variety

More tools Many intuitive & user-friendly tools Fewer

Creativity

Creativity Ad campaigns using Ad Sense do better than

Yahoo Ads

Not as creative

Wholesome Minimalistic text

:Home-page less cluttered

Very cluttered

Brand elements not very

likable, memorable

Competence

Relevance of

search

More relevant

User Adaptive

searches

Related suggestions on Google None

Inbox Space and ID

variability

1 GB when launched and increasing 250 MB


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Yahoos decline and Ideas forRebranding 2010

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Lac%

ingcompetence Creativit&

Creativity is a verycrucial factor especially in the dot com business' where thesole purpose is to

attract and retain customers and users. Yahoo lagged far behind on this front than ( oogle' as it had

just one fixed look which it carried, where as(

oogle wasconstantly putting efforts to give the usersa new experienceeach day. This drove a lot of traffic towards ( oogle, drawing clients and

advertisers as well.

Man&

more toolsin Googlesboot&

andt) eyre FREE

An excerpt from a blog:


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Us: Yahoo maps sales called us up to tell us that our free 6 month

listing has been removed and if we wish to re-activate the listing, we have to pay.

Our response was as follows:

Us: But 0 listing on Google M 0 ps/Pl0 ces is free

Y01

oo M 0 ps: A1

yes, but t1

ere 0 re so m 0 ny fe 0 tures 0 v0 il0 ble 2 it1

Y01

oo M 0 ps Listings

Us: Yes, but Google M 0 ps/Pl0 ces listing is FREE 0 nd it1

0 s so m 0 ny fe 0 tures, not interested t1

0 nks

Y01

oo: But, bl0 de bl0 .

Us: Sorry, 2 ere not interested t1

0 nks needless to s 0 y 2 e1

ung up.

Furt1

er to t1

e p1

one c 0 ll 2 e delved into Y01

oo M0 ps 0 little to see 21

y 2 e s1

ould p 0 y for 0 listing.

Heres 21

0 t 2 e found out.T1

eres more fe 0 tures 0 nd 0 n 0 lytics tools 2 it1

Google Pl0 ces (0 nd its

FREE)

Goo3

les Simple and Clean4

s. Yahoos clutteredpage


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Rele5

ance of search & Reliability

Categories like Sports, Entertainment and Travel where richer media is required for viewers as the

audience wants more emotional appeal than functional appeal, Yahoo has a better share.

Yahoonotas competent:Search capabilities

Yahoos weakness was mainly the speed and relevance. Whereas Google also gave user adaptive

searches or suggestion to users which were a big attraction for the working class and those looking

for quick and relevant searchers. Yahoo hence needed to capitalize on the user category which were

looking for the fun, rich media look and not the functional usage and speed.


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Brand elements - Revitalized

Brand Elements

Name Yahoo

Logo/symbol Itsyou (purpleyvs. old)

Slogan Its You

Jingle (current) Yahoo~ooo~oooo

Likable?very

6 eaningful Yes

6 emorable? yes


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Segmentation Aspiring contemporaries

1. Yahoo is preferred by aspiring contemporaries, mostly the youth

2. Hence Yahoos marketing efforts and tools must be directed as to retain its youthy appeal

3. Yahoo must refine its search capabilities4. Build on its messenger, since that is very directly in-line with the personalization approach

a. Build using cultural and local content

5. Its not been known as a lab of geeky tools

a. And its hard to displace Google in some of its deeply established domains

6. The Its You campaign is directed exactly at this. A more sincere, exciting & personalized

Yahoo

a. The ads are heavy on images of dancers, Dalmatians, soccer and kids blowing

bubbles, and highlights the Internet companys array of services and customization

options

Sincerity & Excitementthrough Personalisation Yahoos Its You marketing campaign

1. Elisa Steele, the companys marketing chiefDont 7 e 8 ll just expect t9

e Web to be our o 7 n?

she said, explaining the idea behind the campaign. T9

8 ts 79

8 t consumers s 8 y t9

ey feel, 8 nd

t9

8 ts 79

8 t t9

ey7 8

nt more of.

2. The rebranding effort includes a modified version of Yahoos well-known yodel, new tag-lines

and the new campaign ends with one sung by a choir that ends with childrens laughter


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Competency: Tech E @ olution

y Leadership: Yahoo is trying to rope in the leaders of the industry to work for them. E.g.

Ask.coms CEO

y More user friendly

y Regional content and language

y More tools in the package

y Less cluttered, better web designs

y We suggest: Tie-ups with sites requiring search functions, still missing. Also sites where

personalized, local content like Mouthshut.com, city news etc. should be tied up with

Brand report- Yahoo

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