In anticipation of its relaunch early next year, YellowPages.com has hired Omnicom's GSD&M to create a branding campaign. YellowPages.com executives plan to meet with the ad agency next week in GSD&M's Austin offices to begin planning the initiative. YellowPages.com, jointly owned by BellSouth and SBC Communications, plans to consolidate its three existing Web entities--SMARTpages.com, RealPages.com and YellowPages.com--into one site in early 2006, at which point they'll be "looking for awareness," according to Mary Jane Thornburg, YellowPages.com's director of marketing. "We don't know a lot at this point, other than the fact that we're going to have to work fast," Thornburg added. Mary Lynn Marinucci, GSD&M's account director for the YellowPages.com partnership, also said that details of the campaign were still up in the air. "We'll be using a mix of both on- and offline media to get the message out in what might be the most competitive category around right now," Marinucci said. The site will be up against Google and Yahoo!, each of which has been making aggressive inroads into local search. GSD&M has worked with SBC Communications in the past, as well as Wal-Mart Stores and MasterCard, the PGA Tour and Norwegian Cruise Line.
The good news is that the biggest adware companies are making strides toward ensuring that their ad-serving software isn't installed without users' knowledge. But the bad news is that some smaller players now illicitly install ad-serving programs that are proving far more difficult to remove than in the past, according to a report released this week by Webroot Software Inc., a company that markets anti-spyware software. "The penetration rates of mainstream adware companies are slowing," states the report, "Q2 State of Spyware." But, the report continues, "extremely pernicious forms of adware" have arisen to fill the void. Overall, 83 percent of consumer computers had either spyware, adware, system monitors, Trojans, or cookies--down from 88 percent in the first quarter and 92 percent in the last quarter of 2004. About 50 percent of consumer computers evaluated by Webroot had adware installed--down from 64 percent in the first quarter and 73 percent in the fourth quarter of last year. The report credited high-profile actions--such as the lawsuit brought by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer against Intermix--as helping to bring about a change in mindset among adware vendors. But, while the total number of unwanted programs seems to be shrinking, the report concluded that some newer forms of adware are far more difficult to get rid of than in the past. "These more virulent adware programs often make removal more difficult to ensure their survival on a PC," stated the report. Webroot also addressed tracking cookies in its study, reporting that 73 percent of consumer computers examined contained cookies. The report noted that the status of cookies within the industry remains subject to discussion. "The debate continues about whether or not cookies constitute spyware," stated the report, which noted that some online advertisers and consumers view cookies very differently. "Many consumers have indicated that any type of application placed on their PC without their knowledge is spyware," stated the report. But the study also pointed out that online advertising companies that use tracking cookies say that programs that remove cookies hurt their efforts to analyze customers' sites. Webroot stated that it will continue to monitor cookies in its quarterly reports for "as long as the discussion continues."
Hoping to encourage more businesses to start their own Web sites, Yahoo! has redesigned its hosting service for small businesses. The revamped service emphasizes customization, brand autonomy, and a simplified checkout process for the 35,000 merchants who have already created Web sites through Yahoo! Until now, merchants were given two generic checkout pages to choose from. Now, each is encouraged to customize their checkouts with the same tools they used to design the rest of their sites--controlling the font, colors, and button appearance, as well as the content displayed in designated navigation areas across their sites, from initial browsing to checkout. The new service also allows businesses to choose between single- and multi-page checkout options, whether to include shipping and billing information on one page, and the use of an order review page. These options give businesses the ability to streamline consumers' shopping experiences--and, one hopes, boost conversion rates. The changes are the result of in-house research that depicts a consumer base more familiar with the world of ecommerce, and merchants eager for more independence, according to Jimmy Duvall, director of ecommerce products for Yahoo! Small Business. "Generic Yahoo! checkout pages used to give Web sites legitimacy at a time when consumers were still wary of shopping online," Duvall explained. "Today, our research is telling us how much more comfortable consumers are with merchants, who can then concentrate more on their independent look and strategy." Sanjeev Aggarwal, an analyst at the Yankee Group, seconded Duvall's theory. "He's right," said Aggarwal, and added: "I think most people are over their old fears that the Internet isn't a safe place to shop." The Kelsey Group estimates that between 35 and 40 percent of small U.S. businesses now have Web sites, and that the number will exceed 50 percent in less than two years, according to Kelsey analyst Greg Sterling. Aggarwal reckoned the current percentage is closer to 60 percent. Duvall estimated that while it shouldn't take merchants more than a few hours to customize their sites, it would probably be a few months before the majority of Yahoo!'s merchant-clients got around to revamping their Web sites. Additionally, the service now offers shipping and coupon calculators on shopping cart pages, so consumers can better determine the entire cost of a purchase at the beginning of the checkout process. Yahoo! Small Business aspires to be a one-stop shop for merchants, offering a suite of services that include Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Domains, Yahoo! Business Mail, and the e-commerce platform called Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, which allows merchants to create a custom online storefront at their own domain name.
E-commerce giant Amazon.com recently brought a slew of adult products--roughly 40,000--out of the obscurity of a third-party site, drugstore.com. The products now are searchable from the home page of the main site, raising the question of whether Amazon.com will face a shift in brand perception. Currently, products reside in the "Sex & Sensuality" section of Amazon's health and personal care section, where they are subdivided into categories such as "enhancers" and "romantic delights." An Amazon spokeswoman said the company's motive in repositioning the material was to increase the range of products available to Amazon's customers. Still, the question remains whether Amazon.com--which has thus far shied away from offering adult material from its main set of stores--could face a backlash. Jupiter Research Retail Analyst Patti Freeman Evans said that a consumer backlash is a distinct possibility. "Any time you put up a particular product, which is potentially a controversial type of product, you'll potentially see a backlash." But, she added, the public at large might not be particularly upset by Amazon's decision. "The products that they're selling are relatively tame. It's just a category that sounds very risqué." Amazon, which has no age verification system, also might come under pressure to warn off minors--which could be an expensive endeavor. "The reach of these companies is pretty universal, so that anybody and everybody can see these products, and the controls are more costly to put into place," Evans said.