Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has called on digital advertising to aspire to become “as good as art” as she discussed the development of the online media company’s platforms and the emergence of native advertising. Mayer claimed that digital habits were down to four behaviours: searching for answers, communicating with friends and family, consuming content and watching great videos. She further added that in the last two years, while she has been at the helm, Yahoo has overhauled almost every single core product and is introducing a new series of products.
Mayer described search as Yahoo’s “heritage” and said that through search the company could bring the best user experience to users when they want it. She further added that it would continue to try to improve the experience of friends and families communicating through Yahoo Mail, partly by introducing a new mobile experience that will include emails, news, sport scores, Stock Quotes inside the Yahoo Mail app.
“Yahoo will also continue to invest directly in content such as Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports” she stated. As well as the five new digital magazines launch since January and the beauty magazine unveiled yesterday. She also highlighted video as a growing part of the business following the reintroduction of Yahoo Screen last year.
A partnership with Live Nation which will see one live concert broadcast every day for 12 months was another initiative Mayer put forward to highlight the growing work on video.
“When it comes to advertising, great, inspiring advertising, there were four specific trends that were a focus: mobile, social, native and video.” She added.
Moving on to native advertising, Mayer said: “Digital is really the only type of advertising that hasn’t fully embraced the word native. We have always done this with search – [offering] sponsored results that were naturally part of the experience, but there is this notion of the internet with the sticker; content in the middle and these stickers with advertisements on the side. Native advertising often brings advertisers a better opportunity and experience.”
She also added that native ads would improve the experience of users and the advertising experience, claiming that 46 per cent of millennials who noticed branded content through Yahoo consumed it and one in three shared it.
