14 DAY TRIAL // It is already a common fact that companies need to reinvent themselves and to attract more segments of the market as time goes by, in order to maintain their revenues. The Sunnyvale-based company attempted to regain its popularity during the fall of 2009, with several events all over the U.S. Apparently, they have decided to resume their effort hoping to obtain better results and feedback from its projected users.
It seems that the 'It’s Y!ou' campaign did not meet its expectations, therefore the developers are considering new ways of approaching users. One of the options that might be employed is pointing towards the concept that the Web is “personal,” including references to specific applications and services provided by Yahoo, but also to third-party networks like Facebook.
When the advertising campaign was launched, there might have been some persons within the giant firm not entirely confident about its potential, and one of them was the CEO, Carol Bartz. She criticized the effectiveness of the entire project during an interview in March, “We didn’t have a really good call to action.”
On the other hand, she did admit that the ads increased the popularity of Yahoo as a brand worldwide, but they did not reach the targeted U.S. markets, mostly because the meaning of 'Y!ou' was unclear. This was exactly why there were some uncertain whether this motto would have what it takes to reinstate Yahoo as a leading Internet portal.
Nonetheless, the officials of the Sunnyvale-based giant have chosen to keep the 'Y!ou' tag for the latest phase of the campaign, while also integrating more specific references to Yahoo offerings, such as search, email, homepage, mobile and more.
It remains to be seen whether contracting a new creative team for the project, namely Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, will manage to bring Yahoo back to the game and attract all the targeted users.