Yahoo hits a ‘purple patch’ with its Newfront 2022 plans
A global cryptocurrency community, an official sports app for punters, personalised, augmented-reality shopping, and a cookie-less web were among the key developments for Yahoo Australia announced today at its upfronts.
The media and advertising company invited industry leaders to join it on its “purple brick road” as part of its Newfront 2022 presentation – a reimagined future, connecting people to their passions through new products, content and technology.
Managing director & VP ANZ & INSEA at Yahoo, Paul Sigaloff, said: “The last year has thrown our industry into a world where innovation is a must-have. A new normal has taken flight.”
Sigaloff said Yahoo is focused firmly on “people first, partnerships always”.
The cryptocurrency market is a fresh content area planned for the web services provider, announced by outgoing NSW sales director Clare Ruddock.
It is hoped this will be embraced by the 18 million monthly active Australians on the platform.
“Connecting with an exciting, emerging audience that includes a majority of Gen-Z investors, we’re launching a global crypto community to help qualify, clarify and simplify crypto’s fast-growing audience,” Ruddock said.
Ruddock said Yahoo’s focus on these narrower audience segments’ interests broadens their reach significantly.
“What’s good for the audience, is good for brands,” she added.
Ruddock also said the platform will launch an official Australian Yahoo Sports app, to drive deeper conversations for highly-engaged sports fans and move them from being fantasy participants to highly-active and progressive punters.
Meanwhile, Yahoo AUNZ GM sales, Rachel Page, announced a raft of educational programs such as a Yahoo academy, boot camps and masterclasses among its smart marketing offerings, or the “special purple sauce” as Page called it.
Among the innovations were its Yahoo DSP (Demand Side Platforms) for incremental audiences, a cross-screen planner and a unified TV report. This is hopes it will go a long way to helping solve the challenges of omnichannel marketing.
The Newfront 2022 also highlighted its partnership with Aussie retailer Big W and how the Yahoo Creative Studio allowed consumers to explore Big W’s products in 3D online using augmented reality, with a successful click-to-buy campaign.
Zoe Cocker, head of Yahoo Creative Studios explored this technology further.n“Innovation is baked into everything we build,” Cocker said. “Investment in the immersive is crucial; freeing people to be beyond the two dimensions of the screen.”
Cocker explained how Yahoo had partnered with fashion designer Charli Cohen to build a 360-degree digital world with hotspots to buy limited-edition physical and digital products. “It’s about connecting people to fashion digitally,” Cohen said.
Yahoo is also poised to embrace new frontiers for growth, including NFTs, blockchain, quantum and game engines in 2022.
Dan Richardson, head of data at Yahoo, kept the purple theme going, touching on the “purple smarts” of “knowing your audience”.
Richardson said:
- 75% of ads risk being delivered blindly to audiences
- 72% of consumers say they’d appreciate the benefits of relevant, useful advertising content
Richardson said personalisation is expected, but hard to deliver for most platforms. With Yahoo’s Connect ID, the platform can build “direct-to-consumer relationships and identify audiences across different devices”.
“[Yahoo is] changing the way you’re able to work on the web,” Richardson said.
The no-cookies approach is moving more to an open web format that is highly compatible across different industries, he added.
Sigaloff wrapped-up the presentation heralding a new chapter for Yahoo in Australia.
He said Yahoo plans to unfold a world that is “truly connecting you in exciting ways, champion connecting people to their passions and leveraging a unified tech stack to amplify messaging” for the marketing and advertising sectors.
Yahoo Australia (formerly Verizon Media Australia) is a global web portal and is the subsidiary of global internet company Yahoo. It was acquired by Apollo Global Management earlier this year after formerly being part of telco giant Verizon.
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topics
BIG W
Clare Ruddock
Dan Richardson
Paul Sigaloff
Rachel Page
Yahoo
Yahoo Australia
Zoe Cocker
Whatever happened to those tedious webinars they kept pushing out through COVID? I’m not surprised the marketing director left, such a badly thought through way of tackling advertiser engagement I thought?
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