14 DAY TRIAL // Yahoo is having another go at revitalizing its brand with a second big-budget advertising campaign. The new campaign seems a little more focused than the “It’s Y!ou” campaign of last autumn, but it remains to be seen if it will prove more successful. The new slogan is, “Your favorite stuff all in one place. Make Yahoo your home page,” a definite improvement over the vague and grammatically abusive previous one.
It’s an all-out effort, the new ads will be in print, outdoor and, obviously,, online. The first ads are beginning to show up and the one that is catching everyone’s attention is a video that takes a clear swipe at Google.
The video aims to make a comparison between what Google and Yahoo think the homepage should be. The obvious undertone is that Google’s approach is fundamentally wrong. The video starts off with a web page strikingly similar to Google’s. It features a search box, a button and some links on top, the minimalistic approach Google takes much pride in.
“When you look at this homepage, nothing looks back at you. You come to this place, so you can leave,” the voice in the ad says. “At Yahoo, we have a different idea. Your homepage isn’t blank, or anonymous; it doesn’t hustle you out the door. It’s a place that gets to know you, a place that finds things for you, a place that surprises you, a place you wanna stay,” the ad continues.
What Yahoo says is completely true, Google is designed to get you where you want to go as fast as it can. It doesn’t want to be a distraction and it doesn’t want to get in the way. But shouldn’t this be what a search engine does? This is not a ‘problem’ that Google has, it’s a design philosophy. And it’s one that most people seem to like, since that’s what drove hundreds of millions of people to switch from Yahoo to Google a long, long time ago.
Still, Yahoo seems to be implying that people want to have everything shoveled in front of them on their homepage. It doesn’t really sound right, but maybe, after more than a decade since Google rose to power, and with the web having become incredibly complex and varied, the new trend of bringing everything to one place could help Yahoo.
Then again, it’s this very trend that has helped Facebook close in on 500 million users. And Facebook is set to pass Yahoo in all important metrics. Right now, Facebook is much more of a threat to Yahoo than Google has been for years.