Yahoo Inc. believes a lot of its good work has been overlooked by investors and the media, so it’s spending more than $100 million to get the word out to consumers directly.
The money is going toward the Internet company’s most expensive marketing campaign since its inception 15 years ago. Yahoo provided a peek at the 15-month blitz Tuesday in New York.
The ads will run on TV, online and in other media in the United States and nine other countries where Yahoo hopes to expand on a worldwide audience that is already approaching 600 million.
Despite its extensive reach, Yahoo’s brand has been bruised in recent years as its profits sagged and many people turned to Internet search leader Google Inc. and relative newcomers like Facebook Inc. and Twitter Inc.–none of which have spent much money on self-promotion.
Yahoo’s financial struggles were magnified last year when then CEO Jerry Yang spurned a $47.5 billion takeover offer from Microsoft Corp.
The rebuff alienated many Yahoo shareholders, and the company’s market value now is about 50% below Microsoft’s last takeover offer in May 2008. The rivals ultimately agreed on a search partnership nearly two months ago.
Yahoo chief executive Carol Bartz, hired eight months ago to steer a turnaround, believes the company has been getting a bum rap–something she hopes to reverse with the new advertising push.
“When you get outside of New York City and Silicon Valley, everybody loves Yahoo,” Bartz said Tuesday during a press conference. “Why are you [the media] so cynical about us? Be cynical about frigging Google. If you don’t love us, leave us alone.”
Yahoo’s new ads will highlight its recent efforts to give visitors more ways to customize pages that they see on Yahoo, even if it means drawing upon material from other sites.
One ad reads: “There’s a new master of the digital universe. You.”
