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
Digiday+ Research: Amazon gets an even stronger hold over retail media
It looks like Amazon’s stronghold on retail media is getting stronger, not weaker, even as players like Walmart and Target get further into the retail media space and more retailers enter it.
Marketers are calmer about TikTok’s future in the U.S. — even as its ads team thins out
As the April 5 deadline looms, the panic has curiously subsided.
Marketing Briefing: Marketers push for more flexible retail media deals amidst economic uncertainty
As if the retail media boom isn’t under enough scrutiny, new tariffs and talk of economic recession have sparked more questions about the negotiation process.