Why Yahoo! needs a rebrand
Marissa Mayer is a brilliant data nerd, but tone-deaf when it comes to brand love
During the late ’90s, Yahoo!’s retro “Vacancy” billboard on the 101 in the middle of downtown San Francisco was as much a symbol of the Dot Com Boom as anything. The wacky billboard represented more than a company, but the voice of a whole new generation of start-ups with a dream. Developers working on milk crates and doors, shoveling down cheap pizza and Tecate at 2am, could take on Big Blue. Watch out corporate America! Yee haw!
Yahoo.
The Yahoo! brand stood for something, and that billboard with its constant updates and irreverent voice stood for something. Every day or every week that message changed, but the one consistent thread was that it had a personality. It was the Gold Rush, Part 2. Silicon Valley was in the throes of such giddy success that the Yahooligans wore their wackiness like a badge of honor.
Until that act got tired. Ultimately, Yahoo! let their own success be defined by the comparatively mindblowing success of Google, which made them appear to be losers in a battle for the pot of gold. And, it’s hard to keep shouting like you just won the lottery when you are perceived as a loser.
After years of ubiquity, down goes the billboard.
Fast-forward a few years and a few failed CEOs, and Marissa Mayer strides in and we all believe she can change fortunes because she’s so damn smart and Googly. For a while, it looks like she’s making strides.
She made people stop working from home. She hired some great design talent to make beautiful products like Yahoo! Weather and Yahoo! News Digest. And she changed the culture from one where every decision was made by a committee of 30 people to one where every committee was made by one person… her (at least that’s what I've heard from multiple people I knew who had regular meetings with her).
Her Vulcan logic led her to identify the need for a rebrand. She revealed a fancy new logo that made Yahoo!’s look and feel far more Apple-y, something every good Silicon Valley brand aspires to. It was sleek. It was clean.
And it had no soul. This is where Marissa Mayer didn’t get it. The Yahoo! brand is inherently off-kilter. I mean, it’s someone screaming “Yahoo!” for chrissakes. Somewhere, the people at Yahoo! started to think their brand was about purple, not personality.
The billboard on the 101 came back, but the personality was gone. Sure, there are exclamation points that adorn the new sign, but the writing simply is uninspired and as I drive past it every day as I sit in Bay Bridge traffic, it just seems so terribly wrong.
Want some data to prove it? Do an image search for “Yahoo billboard” on Google. You’ll find scores of pictures of that old sign, featuring awesome, edgy headlines that capture the essence of that personality. You’ll also see images of the new sign. The headline that everyones snapping?
Blank. Nothing interesting enough to grab a picture of.
This brand problem has permeated deeper than Yahoo!’s voice at this point. Even people who don’t actually read the news see headlines in their online travels. I hate to use a Trumpian word, but people think Yahoo! is a LOSER of a company. How could they not—they’ve been getting such bad press for so long. And in the art of branding, perception is reality.
So, here’s my advice to the people at Yahoo!
- Lose the name. Yes, I know you just invested in a rebrand. But you need to go deeper. You’ve got the Alibaba money, so you can afford it. Moreover, you need to lose the “loser” albatross that is pulling your brand down. The wacky uncle gig doesn’t play anymore. You can’t move away from it without moving all the way away from it.
- Lose the purple. The only people who love Yahoo! purple are people who work at Yahoo! Purple is a color for nine-year old girls. I could dig up a lot of design nonsense about the science of brand color representation, but the fact is I just hate purple. I have a feeling I’m not alone.
- Get a voice. Get some soul. To me, this is the most important part. Yahoo! needs to figure out who they are. They need to have a soul. They need to find a voice. Perhaps Marissa needs to listen to some Aretha Franklin. Go out dancing. Maybe smoke some peyote (do you smoke peyote or eat it?). Or maybe just spend some time with customers. Regardless, she@ needs to stop looking at spreadsheets to understand human behavior and have a deep think about what really makes people tick.
- Get a business model. All of this branding won’t do you a bit of good if you can’t find a business model that makes people stop calling you a loser. I know that ad tech has disrupted the online publishing model, but you’ve got the 3rd highest amount of traffic on the web and a huge pile of yen to go hire talent and produce content. There’s got to be a business in there somewhere. Think Netflix. Think HBO. Be audacious.
- Don’t buy Twitter. You’ll just run it into the ground.
It sounds like Marissa has a new plan. Laying people off and shutting down lines of business that aren’t making money sounds like a tough, but necessary step. It’s hard to see what that plan is from out here on the internets. I’m not purporting that I have any answers to their business model problem, but from a brand perspective, it’s clear to me.
They need change.