Today’s post isn’t suitable for children. I’m going to say a word that begins with “s”….an inappropriate word that I utter when I’m incredibly happy.
To be clear: I bought Yahoo! stock as soon as I learned Marissa Mayer was the new CEO.
Front page of the USA Today yesterday: YAHOO! Counting Down To A New Logo
Brilliant. It takes a great CEO to take the banal and turn it into a headline. If Mayer knows one thing, it’s the power of mindshare in advertising. …and if you don’t think Yahoo! is an advertising company, I’m not sure you’ve been alive the past 10 years.
To garner advertising you need eyeballs. To get eyeballs you need “hot.” Mayer knows that Yahoo! is pretty damned short on “hot” now, so what does she do? She manufactures hot.
I remember the mid 1980s when the Eisner team took over Disney. Their goal was just to get mindshare. People were taking their families on vacation, and never once considered Disney. Now, in 2013, how could you take kids on vacation and not have that six letter work at least come up?
Mind share.
Mayer gets it. Let’s be realistic for a moment. Who gives a shit what Yahoo!’s logo looks like? When’s the last time a company made the front page because they changed their font? This isn’t news at all…it’s brilliance. PT Barnum once said that there is “a sucker born every minute.” In this case, it’s the press. Yahoo! is winning the day because Mayer knows the key to success: keep mindshare.
Stackers, what’s the lesson?
In your career, what are you doing to keep mindshare?
In your portfolio, do you invest in companies that keep mindshare?
She sounds like one smart cookie. Girl power! =)
Yahoo is one of those companies that their sheer size and history make them news for even the most mundane things. I don’t think it had anything to do with Mayer. Any move, large or small, is simply going to be news and have people debating its merits.
It’s not the first time that a company made the news with a logo change. USA Today just changed their logo to that blue dot in the last year and I remember John Colbert doing a 5 minute spot on it.
We’ll disagree on this one, Edward. Why a new logo right now? This has all been orchestrated. I’ll agree that the media debate is exactly the audience Yahoo! was hoping for when they planned the change.
They are trying to rebrand. I agree about that. Companies do it all the time. And Yahoo is large enough to make it to the news with that. All I’m saying is that neither are dependent on Mayer.
Great point about doing this with your career. Doing great work is one thing, making sure the right people know is another. If nobody ever knows it’s going to be pretty tough to get the results you want. For me, I could definitely apply this idea to get better at networking. It’s definitely a weakness of mine.
My weakness isn’t networking….it’s telling the world what I’m doing….promotion. I’d have a hard time coming up with an idea like this one to garner publicity.
Hats off to Marissa, She knows exactly what to do and also planned for what is next. So don’t be surprised if you see yahoo making to front page more often. Yeap Holly Girl Power !
That’s why I bought the stock. I think that everything Yahoo! has done lately has been an effort to grab mindshare. Sure, you might not use Yahoo!, but at least now you’ll consider it. In the past, I think a ton of people never even thought, “What can Yahoo! do for me?”
It’s funny that you and Holly say “Girl Power, but remember that this “girl” is also the person who decided that working from home (which affects men and women both) was no longer tolerable. I think that would be a decidedly non-girl power move.
I have never thought of investing by considering a companies “mind-share” (beyond the world’s Apple addiction). Hmmm great thought.
If ever any company has mastered mind share, it’s Apple. I call every tablet an iPad and every MP3 player an iPod. It’s stream of consciousness now…..
“In your career, what are you doing to keep mindshare?”
This is why I’m a huge fan of personal branding and self-promotion. No one else is going to toot your horn for you, you have to do it yourself.
I find that difficult, Nick, but you’re right on, brother. Every business has to have a show business component.
Mayer is so good at what she does. Everything you said is true. It’s amazing that people were not considering Disney as a vacation spot in the 80s…nowadays it’s at the top of the list if you have kids.
I loved reading a book about the period recently (unfortunately, I can’t seem to recall the name) but Eisner, Katzenberg, and the team decided to start advertising (Walt had been against it) because they wanted families to have to, at the very least, decide, “We’re not going to Disney this year.” Just by having it enter the conversation was a win. I’d love to have thousands of people think to themselves, “I’m not going to Stacking Benjamins today.” That’d rock!
The whole Disney thing just amazes me. 30 years ago, Disney was movies. That was it. That was their mindshare. And you’re right! Now look at it! No one vacations with kids without considering some type of Disney adventure. Look at America’s Funniest Home Videos: their end of the year 100k giveaway is one long Disney commercial and everybody LOVES watching it. Even our family, who is decidedly rebellious and makes it a point to go against the tide when “everyone’s doing it” had a long talk about how we would go out of our way to find a vacation that was anti-Disney. They still had our mindshare! 🙂
Ha! Anti-Disney vacation. Sounds like you’re headed to Yellowstone….which BTW, Disney kind of models with their Wilderness Lodge….sigh…..
That’s exactly why people like the Kardashians are famous. They have mindshare, unfortunate, but true.
I wish there was an easy way to remove some people from mind share 😉