Brands can expect a 30% uplift in consumer perception by associating with “high quality” content on Yahoo, says Marissa Mayer
Brands advertising on Yahoo’s “high quality” content across its various products can expect a 30 per cent uplift in consumer perception of them verses what was deemed poorer quality, according tp chief executive Marissa Mayer who was interviewed during Advertising Week New York.
For the internal study, Yahoo paired advertisements content it reviewed as either high-or-low quality – with Mayer explaining that the metrics used to determine high-versus-low varied from picture quality and grammar to the means through which it was generated as well as a number of other factors.
“We saw a brand uplift of around 30 per cent for high quality content. Which means the user who perceived it felt better about that brand and felt it was higher quality to the tune of 30 per cent,” she said.
Mayer explained to FastCo chief, Robert Safian that Yahoo was now focused on creating the right formats for advertising around its content, having decided that putting a paywall on its News Digest app or online Fashion magazine for example was not suitable for Yahoo as a publisher.
She added: “We’re a predominantly ad supported business. And it’s a model we think works well for users and for us. To us, the advertising in our products makes them better, it makes them high quality.”
Mayer also said that great publishers (and content) ultimately attracted more advertisers, and claimed that “the holy grail” was good advertising attracting more users.
But, where the "best advertising will happen in the future" is video, predicted Mayer.
"Yahoo's advertising business is really about search and display," she said. "Display 2.0 is really video. The ability to tell a story, to hold a user's attention for longer, to get a richer message across, we think that's where some of the best advertising will happen."
Mayer didn't adress the rumours of a merger with AOL, wowever, earlier in the day at Advertising Week, AOL chief Tim Armstrong denied the reports, saying it was a "non-issue".