Hasta La Creative!

Yahoo is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, and to celebrate, it’s reviving the iconic billboard that welcomed (or repulsed) San Franciscans driving on Interstate 80’s eastbound approach to the Bay Bridge. The original board was taken down only four years ago, so calling it a revival might be a stretch, but whatever. Let them have their fun.

As you may recall, the original ad looked like a campy roadside motel sign, with a yellow-and-purple color scheme that always seemed a bit too John Waters for that side of the country. It did have a lot of personality, though—check out these great snapshots on Flickr—but that’s unfortunately been stripped away from the drab new sign, which is just an oversized version of the current Yahoo logo.

Here are some photos of the construction:

The new board will be used primarily to update people on product offerings, local events and other company news worth sharing. I feel like they’re missing a lot of opportunities for fun, but that’s why they’re Yahoo and not Google.

O Yahoo! Movies misturou a proximidade do Oscar com o sucesso de “The LEGO Movie” e criou a série de pôsters abaixo.

As minifiguras LEGO tomam o lugar dos personagens dos nove títulos indicados a Melhor Filme na premiação da Academia. Não há nenhuma grande criação além dos cartazes originais, mas não deixa de ser irresistível.

Post originalmente publicado no Brainstorm #9
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Em seu tradicional relatório de fim de ano, o Yahoo! revelou – entre outras coisas – quais foram os 10 Tumblr’s mais acessados em 2013.

É a primeira vez que esse tipo de informação é publicada, e coincide com o fato do Yahoo! ter comprado a rede social, por 1,1 bilhão de dólares, há pouco mais de um ano.

Você confere o TOP 10 abaixo, que realmente contém vários Tumblr’s que foram muito comentados ao longo de 2013. Porém, eu questiono a credibilidade de uma lista que não tem o Fuck Yeah Dementia!!1!, que deveria ser o mais popular desde 2009.

1. Reasons My Son Is Crying
2. This Charming Charlie
3. Hot-Dog Legs
4. Things Fitting Perfectly Into Other Things
5. The Worst Room
6. Brides Throwing Cats
7. Emojinal Art Gallery
8. Exploding Actresses
9. Yacht Cats
10. Buzzfeed Articles Without the GIFs

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After "30 Days of Change," Yahoo rolled out a new logo at midnight ET on Thursday, introducing a design that wasn't one of the 29 previously floated throughout the past month. Instead, it's a completely new design—one that CEO Marissa Mayer explains at length in a blog post titled "Geeking Out on the Logo." She writes:

One weekend this summer, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into the trenches with our logo design team: Bob Stohrer, Marc DeBartolomeis, Russ Khaydarov, and our intern Max Ma. We spent the majority of Saturday and Sunday designing the logo from start to finish, and we had a ton of fun weighing every minute detail.
    • We knew we wanted a logo that reflected Yahoo—whimsical, yet sophisticated. Modern and fresh, with a nod to our history. Having a human touch, personal. Proud.
    • Other elements fell quickly into place:
    • We didn’t want to have any straight lines in the logo. Straight lines don’t exist in the human form and are extremely rare in nature, so the human touch in the logo is that all the lines and forms all have at least a slight curve.
    • We preferred letters that had thicker and thinner strokes – conveying the subjective and editorial nature of some of what we do.
    • Serifs were a big part of our old logo. It felt wrong to give them up altogether so we went for a sans serif font with “scallops” on the ends of the letters.
    • Our existing logo felt like the iconic Yahoo yodel. We wanted to preserve that and do something playful with the OO’s.
    • We wanted there to be a mathematical consistency to the logo, really pulling it together into one coherent mark.
    • We toyed with lowercase and sentence case letters. But, in the end, we felt the logo was most readable when it was all uppercase, especially on small screens.
    Our last move was to tilt the exclamation point by 9 degrees, just to add a bit of whimsy.

Check out a video about the new logo below. What do you think of it?

[UPDATE: And here is the new logo!]

Yahoo is just hours away from that terrifying moment for any brand: the unveiling of a new logo. But the company has approached this rebranding a little differently.

A month ago, it launched "30 Days of Change," a project in which it unveiled a new logo each day—displaying each one on its homepage and throughout its network in the U.S. "It's our way of having some fun while honoring the legacy of our present logo," Yahoo said.

The project has now featured 29 logos. The 30th, set to be introduced tonight at midnight ET/9 p.m. PT, will be the company's official new logo. Yahoo has not said whether No. 30 will be one of the previous 29, or a completely new mark. (If it's one of the earlier ones, then this whole thing appears to have been an elaborate focus-group test—wise, perhaps, given the vitriol that greets many new corporate logos.) This much we do know: "We'll be keeping the color purple, our iconic exclamation point and of course the famous yodel," says the company. "After all, some things never go out of style."

Whatever the case, it's worth looking at the 29 and asking if any of them is an improvement on the original. (Apologies for leading the witness, but we should mention that the Day 10 logo has fared best among the public, according to polling site Polar.) In fact, we have a 30th option to consider, too—as 99designs held its own unofficial contest to develop a new Yahoo logo, and has picked a winner.

So, below, check out Yahoo's 29 options from the past month, plus the 99designs victor. And tell us: Should any of them actually be the new Yahoo logo?

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

Day 6

Day 7

Day 8

Day 9

Day 10

Day 11

Day 12

Day 13

Day 14

Day 15

Day 16

Day 17

Day 18

Day 19

Day 20

Day 21

Day 22

Day 23

Day 24

Day 25

Day 26

Day 27

Day 28

Day 29

99designs winner

O Yahoo! parte para o ataque para cima do onipresente Google com um vídeo debochando da simplicidade da homepage do concorrente.

“Você chega neste lugar para logo sair” — alfineta o portal. Muita gente no Google deve achar esse vídeo um elogio, esta é a filosofia da busca deles. Na verdade são só diferentes abordagens de site: enquanto o Google adota a técnica de estar em todos os lugares com sua busca, AdWords, Buzz, Reader e milhares de outros penduricalhos o Yahoo! tenta matar seu leão sendo o chamado destination site, um modelo muito mais popular no Brasil com seus mega-portais que falam de todos os assuntos.

Para nós consumidores continua valendo a máxima de que toda concorrência é bem-vinda se isso faz com que as empresas corram atrás de melhorar seus serviços.

Via Google Discovery.

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For the first time in nearly a decade, online spending was reported to be 5% lower in Q1 of 2009 than Q1 of 2008. Although losses were not specified by category, it’s clear that online advertising is not recession-proof.

Yet, glimmers of success are still found among gloomy reports and forecasts.

Yodle, an online advertising provider that specializes on small businesses in local markets, has repeatedly shown dramatic increases in year-over-year revenue gains over the past two years.

How dramatic? Try a 300% increase from 2006 to 2007, and 700% from 2007 to 2008. The company started with just nine employees and now boasts over 250. Additionally, Yodle’s client list has jumped from 125 clients in 2006 to well over 5000 accounts managed in 2009.

What is Yodle’s business model for success? As luck would have it, I was able to ask Court Cunningham, CEO of Yodle, that exact question (among others).

Court Cunningham (CC): Yodle delivers the strongest return on marketing investment to the small business owner. In 2007, 50% of online users performed searches for local businesses. In 2008, 82% of online users searched locally. Yodle focuses on providing an avenue for small businesses to “get found.” We place our clients’ ads on larger sites, such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, as well as 75 other top-performing local sites, providing small businesses the online accessibility of a larger company.

Beyond Madison Avenue (BMA): When you say “small” business, what size company are you talking about?

CC: A law firm with 100 employees can be considered a small business… but Yodle’s main focus is on businesses with ten or fewer employees. We are targeting the “S” of SMB. Small business owners realize that they need to be online now more than ever, and Yodle can get them there.

BMA: What does Yodle offer a small business that the online Yellow Pages or a local portal does not?

CC: The greatest benefit Yodle provides is more leads and a lower cost-per lead. Second, we accommodate small business owners by getting them online in an effortless (on their part) manner. If a business owner needs help developing a web site, we offer those services. Finally, Yodle provides full transparency and accountability. We supply clients with an online dashboard that records the number of clicks and calls from their ads. This allows them to record the clicks or calls that turn into qualified leads or sales versus those that did not go anywhere.

BMA: Do you focus on certain types of businesses?

CC: Businesses that benefit the most from Yodle are those in which the product or service has a high value. We cater to plumbers, electricians, cleaning services, locksmiths, personal trainers, contractors, construction companies, etc.

BMA: Do you advertise national companies on a local level?

CC: We do have clients that are national franchises, such as ServiceMaster, that advertise their services locally. But, the majority of our clients are small business owners. Yodle has a unique solution for national franchise companies that allows them to manage local ad dollars and national coop dollars through one easy to use product.

BMA: Currently, Yodle is in the Top 40 DMAs (markets). What are your expansion plans? Are you going to increase the number of markets that Yodle covers?

CC: No, our plans for growth are vertical, which will enable us to provide greater depth per market. We’ll also be rolling out new products in the near future that will be beneficial for our clients.

BMA: Would you say that your greatest competitors are Yelp and other “like-minded” sites?

CC: Not really. We use Yelp and City Search to display our client’s ads. Our biggest competitors would be other sites like ours, and the Yellow Pages.

BMA: Please reiterate Yodle’s advantage over these sites…

CC: Yodle will provide small businesses with a high volume of quality leads, complete service and transparency, and higher ROIs than advertising currently being used.

Yodle is yet another example of a company that thinks progressively and has the ability to succeed while others remain stagnant. Now is the perfect time for small business owners to take advantage of online advertising opportunities to increase their advantage over competitors. Yodle provides local businesses with a simple and affordable way to get new customers and phone calls while establishing an online presence. Click here to find out more about services offered by Yodle, as well as its clients’ success stories.

Jeff Louis: Strategic Media Planner, Project Manager, and New Business Account Coordinator. His passion is writing. Reach out to him on either linkedin.com or twitter.com.

Today, as I was feverishly submitting resumes and simultaneously reading about the economy (multi-tasking for all you would-be employers), I came across ”Ten Winners in the Recession” on Yahoo!, nestled nicely on the Personal Finance page.

Although there weren’t a whole lot of suprises, a few made me scratch my head. Some of the better listees included: Resume Writers & Editors, Condom Manufacturers (we’re poor, but safe!), At Home Coffee Brews, and…(drum roll, please) Career Development Websites! 

That just goes to show you that there is opportunity out there if you know where to look for it.

Surprisingly omitted from the Top Ten list was the single shining light emanating from the advertising sector: Online Ad expenditures. According to the IAB, 2008 saw Internet advertising revenues increase by 10.6 percent overall compared to 2007. Search advertising showed the highest percentage gain, increasing by 19.8 percent over 2007 and accounted for 45 percent of all Internet ad spending. Online display advertising increased by 8 percent while classified ad revenues fell 4 percent. The IAB study, completed with the aid of PricewaterhouseCoopers, can be downloaded here.

To help provide and aid businesses and potential advertisers properly in hitting their target audience, Yahoo has launched three new targeting products for brand and performance marketers.

“As the economy continues to put pressure on advertising budgets, marketers are looking for increased accountability for every dollar they spend. Yahoo!’s new targeting products significantly improve the ability for search and display advertisers to reach their target audience, providing increased efficiency and accountability,” said Michael Walrath, senior vice president, Advertising Marketplaces Group, Yahoo!. “Yahoo! remains incredibly well positioned to meet the growing advertiser demand for performance marketing offerings, and no other company can provide marketers with such scale and expertise across search and display advertising.”

The new products include:

(Source) Press

Advertising Agency: Three Drunk Monkeys, Sydney, Australia
Creative Directors: Scott Nowell, Justin Drape
Art Directors: Justin Drape, Scott Nowell
Copywriters: Justin Drape, Scott Nowell
Director: Three Drunk Monkeys
Agency Producer: Thea Carone
Production Company: Radical
Production Company Producer: Johnny Greally