Yahoo! launches major sport-themed campaign
Yahoo! is set to run its first major multi channel advertising activity since its 2009 “It’s You” campaign, as it looks to promote its online coverage of this summer’s sporting events.
The animated campaign, which uses the tagline “Great moments last forever”, aims to drive awareness of the Yahoo! brand and its association with content and sporting events.
Yahoo! holds exclusive rights to online Premier League highlights and is a partner of Eurosport, which is broadcasting the London 2012 Olympic Games. Yahoo! will be providing online news and analysis around the Games.
The activity will appear on TV from Friday (27 July) and also includes digital outdoor creative on the London Underground, all of which was planned and bought by MediaVest. It will be accompanied by a digital campaign, which features sponsored links placed beside stories on other sports sites, to encourage consumers to view Yahoo!’s sport section.
The company has placed a strong emphasis on scaling up the original content across its sites as it looks to position itself as a lifestyle company rather than a web portal, which is now seen as a more attractive offer to digital advertisers.
Yahoo! claims its “heavy investment” in premium sport in recent years has helped it become in the leading commercial sports site in the UK.
Robert Bridge, senior director and head of marketing at Yahoo! EMEA, says: “This campaign is designed to continue to build the Yahoo! brand and its association with premium content around major sporting events, furthering its market leading position in sport.”
The sports activity marks the first major above the line campaign for Yahoo! since its ill-fated $100m “It’s You” global brand campaign three years ago. The campaign was panned by commentators and in the following year Yahoo!’s then CEO Carol Bartz admitted it “didn’t have a really good call to action”.
Yahoo!’s chief marketing officer at the time Elisa Steele has just joined Skype as its corporate vice president of marketing.
Last week, former Google engineer Marissa Mayer became Yahoo!’s fourth CEO in for years.
