What is it about high-profile companies creating really dumb marketing campaigns? Now Yahoo has gotten in on the game, with their "purple" concept (site found by way of Webbalert.com and Techcrunch). It's part urban game (e.g., people with bikes are traveling around multiple cities with a GPS and a camera taking pictures that post automatically to Flickr.com) part viral marketing, part video series. A comedian pulls some purple pranks, people sing in an elevator. In case you didn't know, purple is supposed to be the "fun" color and is all part of the Yahoo branding effort.
The main ad that plays is just laughably bad, not for any particular reason than it just shows people wearing purple, standing around or trying to have fun when they are not sure why. Because your Yahoo Mail is jam-packed with entertaining spam? Because the company can only create interesting products by assimilating other companies? Because you love exclamation marks in corporate logos?
I think the best ads tell a story about the product, and in that sense, neither the Microsoft ad nor the Yahoo marketing campaign really hit that mark. One of the best ads in recent memory is this Honda ad which is an actual choreographed event that is just unbelievably cool. But it also has a point: a Honda car is more precisely engineered than, say, a Ford Taurus from 1999 or a Yahoo Web 2.0 portal.
How can Yahoo re-establish their brand? Not by convincing people that the color purple is fun. Give us the Honda ad of the Web - take us inside your lab somehow, flaunt your innovation, profile a designer or developer who, let's say, is making really cool products at your company and happens to be 16 years old. Figure out how to tie your ad campaign to the idea of making amazing Web 2.0 products for the next-gen crowd.
What's my main reaction to the purple ads? For one, it reminds me that I'm on a business trip and running low on clothes, and that I hate anything purple. It reminds me, vaguely, of that one Oprah Winfrey movie. It reinforces the idea that Yahoo doesn't make great product, they just like to flaunt brand and image. And, it makes me immediately forget all about the purple site.
From : http://blogs.computerworld.com/yahoo_purple_ad
