In step with its ongoing attempt to transform from a print-centric media company to a digital-first enterprise, Yellow Pages Group has launched a new ad in its campaign to let Canadians know about its mobile app.
A new spot called “Meet the People,” created by agency of record Leo Burnett, launched last weekend and builds on a brand theme established last fall in the “Meet the New Neighbourhood” campaign that promotes YPG’s mobile services. The ad cites examples of how the app can help users find the best businesses in their communities, showing a variety of entrepreneurs – a dentist that won’t make you cry, a restaurant that makes a great manicotti, a spa that offers waxing deals, a tax whiz – with the voiceover says “they’re all just a tap away.”
In addition to running on TV, the new spot also appears on online properties from YouTube to pre-roll on broadcasters’ streaming properties, said YPG director of marketing communications Andre Leblanc.
Starcom handled the media buy.
Leblanc added that one of YPG’s key challenges in the past few years is to reestablish its relevancy in the marketplace with small businesses. “This spot represents the second iteration of our corporate purpose, which is championing the new neighbourhood economy,” he said. The spot is meant to reflect how YPG can act as the “connective tissue” to link consumers with YPG’s technology so they can find small businesses, he said.
Leo Burnett CEO and chief creative officer Judy John has previously said the campaign was about “getting people to recognize they are still about the neighbourhood, but it’s the new neighbourhood, meaning digital access, including the digital app and online platform.”
Yellow Pages’ parent company Yellow Media invested in a major digital transformation last year, and said in December that it had cut its debt by roughly $1.5 billion under a recapitalization plan. At the time, then-CEO Marc Tellier said he expected the transformation to take approximately 18 to 36 months to complete.
“We’re not replacing the print declines fast enough with the new online revenues, but as online continues to be a bigger part of the business, we feel good about the strategy,” he told Canadian Press.
YPG senior manager of public relations Fiona Story noted Monday that online revenues as of the closing of YPG’s Q4 in 2012 represented roughly 38% of total revenues (up from 29% in 2011).
