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
Best Buy, Lowe’s chief marketing officers explain why they launched new influencer programs
CMOs launched these new programs in response to the growing importance of influencers in recommending products.
Agencies create specialist units to help marketers’ solve for AI search gatekeepers
Wpromote, Kepler and Jellyfish practices aim to illuminate impact of black box LLMs’ understanding of brands search and social efforts.
What AI startup Cluely gets — and ad tech forgets — about attention
Cluely launched a narrative before it launched a tool. And somehow, it’s working.