Yahoo announced new content, new ad units and new partnerships as it ushered out its stars at the Digital NewFronts this evening. CEO Marissa Mayer kicked off the presentation by highlighting the four areas of growth the company is concentrating on: mobile, social, native and, of course, video.
Appealing to the media buyers in the audience before rolling out the company’s latest offerings, CMO Kathy Savitt, said Yahoo is the partner that connects advertisers with users at scale across devices and platforms.
Yahoo’s video content pillars are Yahoo Originals, Live, Digital Magazines and Premium content. There were appearances by Katie Couric, Global News Anchor for Yahoo News, Yahoo’s digital magazine editors Bobbi Brown, Joe Zee, Paula Foelich and Josh Wolk, as well as Jets head coach Rex Ryan among others.
New Brand Advertising Opportunities
Ned Brody, Head of the Americas, discussed the new video and rich media advertising opportunities. Brody first showed off new Splash Ads that will run on Yahoo’s digital magazines with examples from M&Ms, seen below, and Geico. Users can engage with the ads, and they have the native feel, appearing within the content feeds.
The company has also been testing Full Page Video Login Ads on the Yahoo login page. The 15-second ads play when users visit the page on tablet and desktop devices.
Simplifying Cross-Screen Ad Measurement
A new deal with comScore will give advertisers access to comScore’s vCE audience-validation metric, available this summer, first on display and video buys for U.S. advertisers. The company then plans to offer the integration on mobile buys and make it available to international advertisers in later phases. The deal should simplify the execution process and will offer access to near real-time reporting on audience data with metrics that are comparable to TV.
Live and Original Content
In a partnership with Live Nation, Yahoo will stream a live concert every day for 365 days, beginning this summer on a new Live Nation channel. The content deal also includes 300 backstage interviews with bands. Yahoo has landed Kellogg’s as the first sponsorship of the Live Nation Channel, available on Yahoo Screen.
Yahoo Travel is the latest Yahoo digital magazine, joining Food and Tech which launched last year.
Joe Zee is heading up the editorial for the Yahoo Fashion channel. The company announced the channels launch partners will be L’Oreal Paris.
Two original long form sitcoms from industry veterans will also be coming to Yahoo Screen. Paul Feig (Freaks & Geeks, Bridesmaids) is producing “Other Space” a sci-fi comedy and Mike Tollin (One Tree Hill, Varsity Blues) and Bryan Gordon (Curb Your Enthusiasm, The Office) are debuting “Sin City Saints” about a fictional pro basketball expansion team.
Bringing it back to advertiser value, the presentation wrapped up with a case study featuring a campaign for Kraft Foods’ Planters Peanuts brand. that highlighted the lift seen from running both display and video ads with Yahoo. Joined by Jane Hilk, EVP of enhancers and snack nuts at Kraft, Brody showed that the message association lift topped 70 percent with the combination of video and display ads. The in-store sales lift was 4 percent, which Hilk said is 80 percent higher than their average campaign performance.
The Yahoo executives also noted that more new content announcements will be coming in the next several weeks.
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