BoomTown » Interactive Advertising Bureau

Yahoo Adds Zimbra to the Garage Sale as It Tries to Shed What Isn't "You!"

Kara Swisher — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:16:05 +0000

According to numerous sources, Yahoo has been shopping around Zimbra, the open-source email company it bought in late 2007 for $350 million.

Zimbra is only one of the many assets of Yahoo (YHOO) that are now on the block, including its personals business, its HotJobs online classified unit and many more to come, said sources.

The effort to unload Zimbra is yet another sign that the company is trying to slim down its diverse portfolio, even as it strives to redefine itself this week with a new, pricey marketing campaign that seeks to position Yahoo primarily as a consumer company.

As first reported by BoomTown last week, Yahoo will be introducing a massive branding campaign tomorrow on the second day of Advertising Week in New York.

The new focus Yahoo is aiming for with advertisers is to stress its huge size and scale with consumers. The troubled Internet giant is still one of the most trafficked sites on the Web.

And consumers will also be reminded of this. The Wall Street Journal wrote a follow-up story yesterday on the marketing effort, noting that the $100 million campaign’s tagline is “It’s You.”

Get it? The “Y” in Yahoo is the same as the one in You!

The details of the plan will be made public tomorrow at a press conference immediately after a keynote speech–titled “Yahoo’s Consumer Revolution…Round II”–that the company’s new CMO, Elisa Steele, is set to deliver at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX conference.

The goal, said several sources at Yahoo, will be to stress Yahoo’s consumer business over all others, which are supported mostly via brand advertising, leaving more extraneous ones out in the cold.

Which is why Zimbra–like a lot of other Yahoo properties–is being shopped around by its top mergers and acquisitions exec, Greg Mrva and others.

(Mrva’s new job title should be: VP of un-mergers and de-acquisitions.)

Backed by Benchmark Capital, Redpoint Ventures and Accel Partners, Zimbra was an innovative start-up whose main business was to provide clients–including Comcast (CMCSA), many ISPs and a number of colleges–with white-label email software capabilities.

Yahoo bought the company to goose that business, whose main rival has been Google (GOOG)–along with using Zimbra technology to improve its massive consumer email offering, also under siege from Google.

That integration has gone slowly, and Yahoo now has less interest in selling email products to others.

But the price Yahoo would get, many think, would be significantly lower that what it paid for Zimbra.

Nonetheless, potential buyers include Comcast and Google, as well as private-equity investors.

In addition, it is not out of the question that its former venture investors could be interested in a classic Silicon Valley buyback.

Zimbra’s founder and CEO, Satish Dharmaraj, who left Yahoo earlier this year, is now working at Redpoint.

Here is a video interview I did with Dharmaraj in early 2008, after the Yahoo deal was struck:

[ See post to watch video ]

Exclusive: Yahoo Set to Unveil Massive New Marketing Campaign at Advertising Week, Declaring Size Does Matter

Kara Swisher — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 17:32:49 +0000

Yahoo is set to unveil a major marketing campaign to reset advertiser and consumer perception of the long-troubled company during Advertising Week in New York, which starts a week from tomorrow.

According to numerous sources BoomTown has spoken to about the campaign, Yahoo (YHOO) is–at least with advertisers–going to focus on stressing the size and scale of the Internet giant.

The details of the plan will be made public Tuesday, Sept. 22, at a press conference.

It will take place immediately after a keynote speech–titled “Yahoo’s Consumer Revolution…Round II”–that the company’s new CMO, Elisa Steele, is set to deliver on the second day of the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s MIXX conference.

MIXX is a two-day event, run by IAB, focused specifically on online advertising.

Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is also going to be attending Advertising Week–during which all the major players in the advertising business gather in Manhattan for a series of events–for a plethora of meetings with big Yahoo clients.

It is likely she and several other senior Yahoo execs will be at the press conference, sources said.

That press event will also include Penny Baldwin, a well-known industry exec Yahoo hired as its SVP of global integrated marketing and brand management in July.

The main message Bartz is set to deliver is that Yahoo is a powerhouse unlike any others on the Web when it comes to online display advertising.

And, in fact, Yahoo–despite all the internal and external turmoil it has undergone in recent years–remains one of the largest sites on the Internet, and is the top player in what is also called graphical advertising, as well as online media and communications.

“The whole push seems to be to remind people of vibrancy of the brand and exactly how huge its reach is,” said one person who has seen parts of the presentation. “It is less Yahoo is back than Yahoo has never left.”

Sources also noted that Yahoo is likely to stick to its plan to push the idea of “your home on the Web” to consumers, which I had previously posted about earlier this summer.

The idea of the Silicon Valley icon being the key hub destination for Internet users does dovetail with pushing its size to advertisers–major marketing messages that will also likely cost a pretty penny.

They will have to–Microsoft (MSFT) has been in the midst of a $100 million campaign for its new Bing search site and will likely spend more when it unveils updates to the service, dubbed Bing 2.0–within the next few weeks.

The company showed the changes it showed to its own employees last week, which was the subject of much tweeting on Twitter.

Yahoo will apparently give more specifics as to the spend for the marketing push at the press conference.

But, many sources said, the company is already out in the advertising market now, buying tens of millions of dollars in advertising online and offline to hawk Yahoo in print, on television and elsewhere.

(Full disclosure: Sources said that campaign will include The Wall Street Journal network, which includes this site.)

“It’s dramatic,” said one source about the marketing outlay.

Since she got to Yahoo, Bartz has continually stressed the need to promote Yahoo products and services more, including in an interview last week on CNBC (you can see that longish video here).

And, in the July earnings call for Yahoo, Bartz said: “In addition, we’re hard at work on plans to reposition our most valuable asset: Yahoo’s brand. Our Q3 plans include an initial wave of incremental marketing spend which will increase substantially into Q4 and next year.”

Also, in a Q&A in the same call, she added more about the long-term nature of the spending on branding:

“The branding and our whole campaign of advertising is just starting; however you have to understand that this is an ongoing campaign so it’s not transient at least for the next year or so. We’re really going to move to reposition the Yahoo brand and Yahoo Company, so right now, consider that as cost that’s in the system.”

What Bartz and other Yahoo execs will likely stress less is search, due to the search deal Yahoo struck in July with Microsoft in which the software giant will take over the back-end technology and Yahoo will sell search ads for both companies.

The company will compete with both Microsoft and Google (GOOG) in garnering the search market still, once the partnership is approved by regulators, with Yahoo focusing on differentiating itself via innovative user interface, design, features and functionality.

Media Link's Michael Kassan (in NYC) and Wenda Millard (From a Boat Somewhere Near Slovenia) Speak About Their New MySpace Gig!

Kara Swisher — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 23:48:36 +0000

Wenda Harris Millard–calling in to BoomTown HQ from a cruise either on the way to or the way from Slovenia, since she said she was not exactly sure, given that it was the middle of the night there–wanted to make one thing clear:

She is still working for her dozens of other clients at Media Link as its president, but also has a big new gig helping MySpace get its advertising sales house in order, especially related to strategy and execution.

“I guess it’s a matter of semantics, but I will be leading the engagement,” said Millard. “But, we have a whole team here too, and I am also still working for all our great clients.”

Okay, people?!? Which is, in Slovenian, in case anyone asks there, Wenda: Vidirati narod?

Which is precisely what All Things Digital had written in a previous post: That Media Link was the hired gun on a strategic basis, with Millard as the point person on fixing the ad sales structure, strategy and more at MySpace.

In an internal memo today, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta said the same: “As part of this process on an interim basis the firm will help manage our day-to-day sales organization under the leadership of Wenda Harris Millard.”

Still, the New York and Los Angeles media consultancy definitely wanted to make clear, both internally and externally, that their hiring had nothing to do with the departure today of MySpace Sales and Marketing President Jeff Berman.

And, indeed, according to both Media Link founder and Chairman Michael Kassan, whom I also spoke with today, Media Link had been talking to MySpace–including Berman, who decided to finally leave only today–since January.

Got it! Media Link also did not hip-check Berman to the curb!

Still, it is a huge and deeply involved job for Media Link, and especially Millard, who will be working with ad sales until a replacement is found for Berman, and then after.

Millard stressed that her new role does not mean spending all her time cussing out ad sales folks who did not make their numbers.

“Media Link will be working on big-picture strategy related to ad sales, product development and structure,” she said. “But, of course, I will be very involved and this is a huge assignment.”

She certainly has the experience to take on the ad troubles of MySpace.

Millard–who was the top ad exec at Yahoo (YHOO) in its glory days and who recently left her job as co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)–has been a longtime online exec, working at Ziff Davis Media and DoubleClick in the very early days of the Web. She was also chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau last year until this past April.

But she also noted that she did not want people to be confused, pointing out that many others at Media Link will also be working on the fix-MySpace assignment too, even as she will also be tending to Media Link’s stable of clients.

“This is an engagement to help its management drive forward a lot of initiatives,” said Millard. “It is the management of MySpace who are the ones in charge.”

It’s a point that Media Link’s Kassan also made in a conversation I had with him today.

“I am very excited, since it is an important strategic assignment and part of the promise of Wenda’s unique set of skills,” he said, acknowledging that this was an unusually large job, very complex and unique for Media Link. “That said, this kind of work is our sweet spot.”

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns MySpace and Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

MySpace to Hire Media Link (and Millard) to Fix Ad Sales; Berman Out

Kara Swisher — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 18:26:35 +0000

UPDATE: In an internal memo, MySpace is now telling employees that current ad sales head Jeff Berman is leaving the company.

In a move that will surely have Madison Avenue talking, well-known online advertising sales executive Wenda Harris Millard (pictured here)–who is now president of New York- and Los Angeles-based media consultancy Media Link–is poised to take over all advertising sales at MySpace, sources said.

But, in an unusual twist, she will remain in her job at Media Link, which has also been hired by MySpace to advise on restructuring the social networking company’s salesforce.

Sources said the arrangement is expected to be announced sometime today.

While details are still being hashed out, Millard–who was the top ad exec at Yahoo (YHOO) in its glory days and who recently left her job as co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO)–will apparently report to MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta directly.

In turn, all regional advertising vice presidents at MySpace will report to her. Millard is likely to work out of New York, where she lives and where the Beverly Hills, Calif.-based MySpace also has offices.

(You can see a video interview that BoomTown did with Millard a year ago below, when she was still at MSLO.)

This is a big coup for Media Link, which was founded by Michael Kassan, given that it will essentially be running a major part of the business of MySpace as MySpace seeks to reinvigorate itself, spur innovation and reset its product strategy.

Media Link hired Millard in April, which turned out to be a good move as she appeared to be the obvious draw for MySpace, as well as News Corp. (NWS) execs.

She is well known to them, as well as to many in both the Internet and advertising industries. Millard has been a longtime online exec, working at Ziff Davis Media and DoubleClick in the very early days of the Web. She was also chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau last year until this past April.

MySpace also reportedly talked to several big online advertising sales execs like Millard about the job, according to several sources outside the company.

This development now leaves the fate of President of Sales and Marketing Jeff Berman (pictured here) unclear.

But several sources told me Berman–whom I wrote earlier this summer was “rumored to be on the bubble,” but remaining for the time being–has been actively looking for a new job in the past few weeks and even told at least one person he spoke to that he was going to be “gone from MySpace by Labor Day.”

Probably sooner, now that MySpace is about to hire Millard and her firm to take over a big part of his job.

Yesterday, MySpace made another splashy move by buying the social music site, iLike, the first acquisition by its new exec team, as part of a move to push the “socialization of content.”

In a statement in the press release about the iLike acquisition, Van Natta might be seen as tipping his hand a little bit: “We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company….”

Seasoned and experienced management was a point he also emphasized in a conference call with media yesterday about the iLike deal.

Millard is certainly that.

And, in fact, there has been a clearing out of almost all of MySpace’s former top execs and replacement with new blood–such as former Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN) and Facebook alum Katie Geminder as SVP of user experience and design and Mike Macadaan, who is VP of product.

It is a process that is doubtlessly going to continue as Millard comes in and cleans house–and it will be interesting to see just what talent comes in next.

Here’s Millard in action in my video interview with her last July, in which she talks about advertising on social networking sites and lots of other stuff:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Full disclosure: News Corp., owner of MySpace, also owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Microsoft's Trojan Horse (Also Google's): Display Advertising

Kara Swisher — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 22:54:43 +0000

So while all the attention on who Microsoft is hunting next–after its latest parry at grabbing Yahoo’s search business was foiled once again–has settled on Time Warner’s AOL (see BoomTown’s post on that interest from Monday), it would be a mistake to assume that the software giant is not still aiming directly at Yahoo.

Why?

Because it must, and not only for the reason–to get control of its Yahoo’s #2 search business–that has been much focused on.

It’s also Yahoo’s (YHOO) strong display advertising business that Microsoft (MSFT) is clearly after.

It has been obvious that Microsoft needs to get hold of Yahoo’s search market share to even begin to compete with its archrival Google (GOOG) in the Web’s goose-that-laid-the-golden-egg search business.

But the future hope, according to numerous sources within the company, is to gain a foothold at Yahoo in order to someday take over its much more impressive and potentially more lucrative online display business, which includes ads like banners.

“This is not just about search,” said one source. “It is about scale in all aspects of a market that is going to be gigantic.”

In a way, it’s a reliable old Trojan Horse strategy, getting into Yahoo’s house in search and then moving onto display, an arena which many think will be the real moneymaker in the years ahead.

Right now, search rules in the online ad business, which totaled $21.2 billion in 2007, according to the Interactive Advertising Bureau.

Search advertising, which Google completely dominates, with Yahoo second and Microsoft third, accounts for 41 percent of that total.

Display accounts for 34 percent. In this space, Yahoo is king, while Google has been a minor player, despite its recent purchase of DoubleClick. Microsoft has been trying to muscle its way in too.

Many think the scaling and targeting technologies that are developing and that Google or Microsoft certainly can bring to the table–combined with the relationship business for which Yahoo is famous–is the next killer app to make display dominate.

Google, though it is trying to downplay its overall power of late, is aiming hard at doing in display what it has done in search, especially trying to use its powerful technology skills.

“We really feel we’re in a position to become the world’s largest display ads provider,” said Google’s SVP Jonathan Rosenberg in its first-quarter earnings call in April.

Obviously, Microsoft’s efforts in this arena would be greatly helped by being tightly integrated into Yahoo’s search business first.

So, while AOL’s (TWX) Platform A ad business is also attractive, it still only sits in the middle of the online ad food chain.

That’s why Microsoft is not likely to take its eyes off the real prize: Yahoo’s much tastier high-end display business.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia's Wenda Harris Millard Speaks!

Kara Swisher — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:05:55 +0000

When I was recently in New York, I enjoyed a delicious breakfast with Wenda Harris Millard, who was recently named co-CEO of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia (MSO), aka the House Martha Built With Her Trusty Glue Gun.

Millard (pictured here) went to MSLO after many years of building and running Yahoo’s (YHOO) ad business (previous to that stint, she worked at DoubleClick in its earliest days).

She was also recently made chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the prominent interactive ad trade group.

Nonetheless, Millard left Yahoo under a cloud, as she and the company parted on the way online ads should be sold going forward and then got into a bit of a tussle of just who left whom, especially with Yahoo President Sue Decker.

Without going into the complicated and conflicting details, some of which became personal and became very public, it was definitely not the way Yahoo should have rewarded Millard–who is well-liked and well-known in the ad industry–after years of loyal service.

As I wrote in a post on her Yahoo departure a year ago:

But I did have an idea about how cloddishly that Yahoo could handle Millard’s departure, in a vain attempt to make it look like they are on the ball in a time of management turmoil that seems only to roil and boil more as time goes on. The decimation of executive ranks there is like watching an online version of “Ten Little Indians,” or for you kids, “Hostel.”

And when you badly treat an employee who has worked pretty hard over the years for you as Yahoo did Millard, you have to wonder how in the world the company is going to attract top talent from the outside–let alone keep those valuable employees on the inside from bolting.

But Millard’s departure–which seems to be a case of her looking for and getting another job, all while Yahoo was also rejiggering its approach to ad sales–was handled with no grace and much confusion.”

Sounds like a bit of a broken record for Yahoo by now; as it turned out, Millard became one of the first in a long line of Yahoo execs to head for the exits.

Millard first went to MSLO as its president of media and got the top job (jointly with Merchandising President Robin Marino) after former President and CEO Susan Lyne stepped down.

There she will have to focus a lot on MSLO’s online business, which is probably its best bet for future growth.

The company needs it, as it has been clawing its way back to better results of late. MSLO stock has been dropping since 2007, all the way to close to $5 a share, although it seems to have stabliized more recently in the mid-$7 range.

It is a good thing–oh, I had to–that online advertising is a topic Millard knows well.

In fact, she actually likes talking about the block and tackle of figuring out how to properly use commercial messages within the online space.

At Yahoo and today, she was well known as a backer of brands over the holy algorithm and has often railed against treating online ads as if they were pork bellies–that is, commoditizing the business.

Here’s the video of her talking about it and more:

[ See post to watch video ]

On the Straight Talk Express With Sue Decker

Kara Swisher — Thu, 28 Feb 2008 08:59:09 +0000

While I usually give top executives at Yahoo (YHOO) a hard time about their unusually opaque memos and statements that typically say exactly nothing, I liked that clarity in a blog post by President Sue Decker on Yahoo’s Yodel Anecdotal about the appearance she made with CEO Jerry Yang at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s annual meeting on Monday.

“The challenge is that advertisers and publishers are forced to deal with disparate systems and multiple platforms for buying search, display, video and local ads. That in itself is an inhibitor to achieving that growth,” wrote Decker (well, I hope she wrote it!) “We want to eliminate all the friction and complexity that advertisers, publishers, agencies and exchanges deal with so they can focus on reaching the right audiences and driving greater monetization. … Our approach is as different to current advertising platforms as the DVR was to VCRs.”

I know some at IAB thought Yang and Decker were not specific or substantive enough (and I was not there in person, so I cannot say if their performance was weak or not). But I thought Decker clearly articulated in the blog post the benefit of a strong Yahoo in the online display ad market, which it dominates and where it can push for standards and practices.

And the metaphoric comparison she made was a great one, although there are probably fewer and fewer people who remember what a pain videotapes can be.

Still, it must be said: More Sue Decker out of the cone of silence might be a good thing for Yahoo.

Defining Yahoo: Beyond the Pail

Kara Swisher — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 20:16:30 +0000

gal·va·nize [gal-vuh-nahyz]
–verb (used with object), -nized, -niz·ing.
1. to stimulate by or as if by a galvanic current.
2. Medicine/Medical. to stimulate or treat (muscles or nerves) with induced direct current (distinguished from faradize).
3. to startle into sudden activity; stimulate.
4. to coat (metal, esp. iron or steel) with zinc.
Also, especially British, gal·va·nise.

[Origin: 1795–1805; < F galvaniser, named after Luigi Galvani; see -ize]

Oh, my.

A pail?

That’s the exact image I got when I heard the unusual word Yahoo (YHOO) CEO Jerry Yang used when he decided to finally emerge from the cone of silence (where, let’s be clear, he has been living for the last year) and make a public declaration about the unsolicited bid Microsoft (MSFT) had made for the company he co-founded.

“Obviously I think we can’t say a whole lot about the process we’re going through. Everybody has read about everything we’re doing, so there’s not much more to add,” said Yang in a Q&A session after a keynote speech he gave yesterday at the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s yearly meeting.

Noting he wanted to make sure that “where Yahoo goes is the right place” for everyone involved and standing by the company’s assertion that the Microsoft offer was too low, Yang characterized the takeover attempt as “a galvanizing event for all of us at Yahoo.”

Yang was echoed almost exactly at the IAB event by Yahoo President Sue Decker, who said the Microsoft bid was a “galvanizing force and a catalyst.”

Obviously, teams of strategic advisers were up all night chugging Red Bull to come up with this particular word to trot out for the official talking points memo. (One has to wonder what the No. 2 word was–Stomach-churning? Migraine-inducing? Panic-attack-creating?)

Of course, if they had actually checked the definition, like the one above, one might have imagined they would have thought twice about using it.

Because, leaving aside No. 1, No. 2 and, most especially, No. 4 (ouch!), No. 3 is not exactly what I would imagine Yahoo shareholders and employees want to think of the company’s leaders.

That is, being startled into sudden activity. Other definitions are similar, but they all have to do with reacting as if stimulated by an electric shock (Merriam-Webster), instead of acting without that kind of painful prodding.

Of course, you might think continually declining search-market share over the last year might have zapped Yahoo execs.

Or quarter after quarter of flat earnings.

Or the stock price drifting downward to dangerous levels.

Or all those departing execs and deepening morale problems.

Or, of course, that sticky peanut butter memo that, in hindsight, outlined the problems at Yahoo pretty clearly.

But, of course, it did actually take the attack from Microsoft to spur this recent spate of frantic activity from Yahoo, whether it be kibitzing with Google about outsourcing search (now obviously a nonstarter) or talking to companies like News Corp. (owner of Dow Jones and All Things Digital) about possible merger combinations (which all sound painfully complex) or focusing on new product innovations (like a new Digg competitor called Buzz, which we will feature on this site).

One also imagines other ideas being cooked up, such as a significant acquisition.

For example, I would not be surprised if Yahoo was taking a long look at the for-sale-sort-of social-networking site Bebo, which–if it does get snapped up soon, instead of raising funds–will likely get picked up by a media company like Viacom or CBS.

Well, it is nice to see such energy out of Sunnyvale at long last, even though most agree that it is only a matter of time before Microsoft prevails in its aggressive quest to own Yahoo.

And while Microsoft execs have recently promised to protect the Yahoo brand and keep its significant presence in Silicon Valley intact, all the galvanizing in the world will not mask the truth.

And that is: The idea of an independent Yahoo, which is still a laudable one, is probably about to kick the bucket.

Maybe a galvanized bucket, but a bucket nonetheless.

In the meantime, here’s the Chemical Brothers’ 2005 terrifically energetic hit, “Galvanize,” which might provide some inspiration to Yang and the Yahoo board as they move to their inevitable decision.

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.