Yahoo on Participation Marketing: Hips Don’t Lie!
Yahoo is trying its Panamanian darndest to best Google at search.
Nevertheless, the Yahoo strength continues to be “establishing the Internet’s most valuable audience through deep and engaged relationships,” as CEO Terry Semel underscores every three months to Wall Street in his earnings calls.
What is the “Future of Search Marketing” from Yahoo’s point of view, then? It resides in particular with the “Consumer 2.0,” not necessarily the “Searcher,” as suggested by Ron Belanger, VP of Agency Development at Yahoo, presentation at the Future of Online Advertising (FOOA) conference Thursday in New York City.
On the topic of Search Marketing, Belanger showcased above all Yahoo’s Web 2.0 “collaboration & sharing” tools!
Belanger began his talk, headlined “Understanding Consumer 2.0,” by signaling the importance of focusing on the “people conducting the searches,” rather than the search mechanics themselves.
Who are these people? With a half billion users world wide, all use the Internet differently, Belanger said. How then, can messages be catered to individuals, to get their attention? Yahoo wants to “empower” Consumer 2.0 “choice,” in a scalable way.
Because Consumer 2.0 is “stressed-out, sleep deprived, over worked and over whelmed,” there is less available time to physically reach them and it is harder to reach them emotionally, Belanger indicated. There IS hope, though.
Consumer 2.0 is “addicted to leisure”; If marketing messages are “entertaining, fun and relevant,” they can succeed, Belanger underscored, when aimed at the “passion points” of “community participants.”
Participation Marketing, according to Yahoo:
Identify your best customers,
Listen to them,
Collaborate with them,
Give them tools to share.
Above all though, “Hips Don’t Lie!” Belanger presented a case study on Yahoo’s “participation marketing” program for Shakira’s album.
Yahoo reached out across its Consumer 2.0 platforms to target “communities of passion” around Shakira–70 fan groups, 120,000 images, 100 customized fan sations–with a pitch to start shaking those hips!
Belanger showed a video of myriad Consumers 2.0 that took Yahoo up on its offer and submitted their own (Yahoo) clip-culture videos of themselves shaking their hips like Shakira. Yahoo received more than 10,000 user video submissions and the Yahoo remix “was our number one most downloaded video,” Belanger said.
Moreover, Yahoo helped extend the life of the hit single, he proudly added. In other words, those hips kept shaking!