My view is that if Yahoo can win over entrepreneurs, it will help drive innovation. If they innovate, that will help win over consumers. You know what agencies flock to? Innovative companies that consumers flock to.
— Jeff Lanctot, chief media officer, Razorfish in “As ‘Tech’ Company, Yahoo Is Giving Ad Agencies A New Look: The Cold Shoulder.” (AdAge)
The age-old dilemma for all Silicon Valley tech companies is whether they’re really media companies. Google went through this debate ad nauseam in its early days. The challenge is these companies are both: They’re tech companies with media business models. Yahoo made the decisive turn to focus on its tech side when it passed over Ross Levinsohn for Marissa Mayer, a virtual unknown to Madison Avenue. Lanctot crystallizes why this tech-company-or-media-company debate is a false one. Ad buyers follow audiences. Yahoo’s relevance depends on that, whether it attracts that audience through hot mobile tech or through great content.
More in Marketing
‘A multi-model world’: Microsoft’s CEO says the future of AI is orchestration, not one single model
Microsoft’s CEO just handed ad execs a survival guide for the agentic era.
OpenAI is hiring engineers, not ad sellers, first to build its ad business
OpenAI is focused on constructing the machine before worrying about selling what comes out of it.
A step toward compliance: the creator economy addresses disclosure and liability risks
The Institute for Responsible Influence will offer a creator certification program to standardize disclosures and increase creator accountability.