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A LESSON IN MARKETING FOR YAHOO!

Zoe Piper 11th January 2008

Just before Xmas I spent some time browsing Yahoo! Answers; Yahoo!'s peer-powered knowledge exchange service. Relying on the input of its users it's certainly no Wikipedia, but it does have a loyal following of thousands who log on daily to ask and answer a torrent of questions.

On this particular day there was unrest on the forum; every fourth or fifth question was a variation on a theme:

"How do you stop that annoying Gap ad?!"

The 'Gap ad' was a video advert at the top left of the page that auto-played every time the page refreshed. Click on a question, browse any of the categories or use the back button and the ad replayed itself from the start, complete with loud and intrusive conversation between the two 'stars' of the video.

Users were complaining how irritating it was, how it played over any music they had on and how they had to turn their speakers off to get any peace. "Why won’t Yahoo! make it go away?!" echoed across the forum.

Gap made and paid for this advert, but it didn't exactly help their reputation. Nor did people thank Yahoo! for showing it. Internet video is often heralded as a dynamic new medium, so it's worth looking at what went wrong in this case.

No Nonsense Browsing

The crux of the matter is that internet users demand simplicity; immediate access to interesting content is what makes the web so brilliant. When it comes to television, you might be prepared to sit through adverts (or go and make a cup of tea) but so far the net's remained a pure environment with users controlling what they're exposed to.

It just goes to show that companies should tread very carefully when trying to push products to a market that takes no prisoners.

Text Ads Outside Search

Right now the humble text ad dominates online promotions, with sponsored links appearing next to the natural results on search pages (i.e. Google). These are checked for relevance and pretty unobtrusive; giving users the choice to click or to ignore. With the growth of internet advertising however, all that looks set to change.

We've already seen Yahoo!'s blundering efforts at bombarding users with irrelevant advertising, but Google are in danger of going the same way. Although they've improved their contextual advertising system in recent months, emphasising the relevance of the websites your ads are shown on (and even letting you handpick them) there's still room for abuse.

To take an example, the last time I was on eBay I noticed Google text ads being shown right below the auction listings. They may be relevant (shoe adverts were shown below shoe listings), but are they really suitable for an auction website? Personally, I don’t think so, and it boggles the mind why eBay would feel the need to show them.

Today's Moral

There's huge money to be made in advertising; in fact it’s where Google gets its revenue, so expect to see more of it in future. Hopefully Yahoo! won't make the same mistake twice, but if they or anyone else pushes the boundaries of usability by introducing what amounts to spam on their websites, don't forget that you're only ever one click away from taking your custom elsewhere.