New Definition for www: Wenda's Wired World! Part II

Considered the "Leading Lady" of the Interactive media business, Wenda Harris Millard leads Yahoo!'s advertising sales efforts on Madison Avenue and across the country like few others within the business ever could. A well-known innovator in both traditional and interactive media, she has made her mark in the business by never forgetting that Madison Avenue is a business fundamentally based on relationships, between buyers and sellers. MediaPost recently asked Tim McHale to catch up with Harris Millard, to chat about the business and to see how she sees this new 21st century landscape shaping up, along with Yahoo!'s position within it.

McHale: How does a company as large and complex as Yahoo channel innovation? What insights can come from people at the front lines of any level? How does that information get distilled? Is there a reward system? How does innovation not get squashed as much as nurtured? And how does your sales organization keep it's "ear to the ground" talking to the marketing community?

Harris Millard: It's a wonderful question and a wonderful subject. One of the things that's fascinated me at Yahoo, is that the company is clearly in phase two. In my opinion, what Yahoo has done that's quite fascinating from a corporate standpoint is that it has been very successful in preserving the best of the original culture, which was a culture of innovation. There's been great sensitivity to focusing on keeping the great part of what built Yahoo, as well as to drain it of things that were really phase one. This is a culture of innovation and I think Yahoo is a very contemporary company. By that I mean it's far from a traditional, hierarchical organization, so there's a lot of opportunity to speak your mind and share your ideas and that stuff is very basic. We have executive brown bag luncheons all the time. There's a very open forum for sharing ideas. There are traditional ways of rewarding people for great thinking and great action. We have something called the Yahoo Superstar Award. That's a corporate award, and then within the sales organization we have the MVP awards. There's lot's of opportunity to express appreciation for innovation and good ideas. I think, it's part of the culture and we've been able to preserve that in Phase Two.

McHale: How have your creative summits been working? I know you've gotten a lot of attendance. Are you going to continue them?

Harris Millard: Oh, big time. Jerry Shereshewsky and I just got back from London where we staged a creative conference and had everyone from Sir Bob Geldolf speaking to us from 30,000 feet to Dave Stewart. We had Jerry Balmore the great patron saint of advertising over in the UK and we brought Keith Reinhard and John Haggerty. It was an amazing group of speakers. We had attendance from the UK France, Spain, Italy and Scandinavia.

McHale: But do you see the TV producers, and the copy writers and art directors who have spent significant years in traditional media attending? I'd have to imagine it's still a fairly intimidating proposition to create creative solutions through interactive media.

Harris Millard: Sure, but our purpose is not to try to get a television director to become a creative director for the Internet. What we're trying to do is a couple of things when we focus on creative. Number one, it's a very strong belief of ours that if we do not begin to really focus on the work and create advertising that is engaging and compelling for the user, then a lot of the other things that we spend our time on really doesn't count. We've got to get the work right, so one of the reasons we're really focusing on this is because we believe it so strongly. We want to lift awareness all across the industry of the importance of focusing on the creative. The second thing is to raise awareness about what can be done in digital marketing today. One of the greatest comments we hear after our creative conferences - at the cocktail party - is people saying, "I had no idea you could do that on the Internet." That's a nice thing. That's what we're trying to do. Raise awareness and help traditional creatives understand what is possible, as an extension of their current campaign. The Yahoo sales team can't do that by itself because of the intimacy with which technology and creativity needs to live on the internet. They're not going to learn that. That's not the point. The point is, if they can engage their minds in the potential of what "could" happen here, then they can engage in conversation with those who do create it. You'll have a far more robust multi-touch point campaign. And that's what's working. Most people are beginning to understand that digital marketing is a part of marketing, it's not apart from. We had the hugely successful one in New York last Fall. October 30th is the next date, 2.0 in New York. We just did London which was just hugely encouraging, exciting. Last week we did Minneapolis with 230 people. It was fantastic and we have Los Angeles coming up in November.

McHale: Is there enough technology our there to make good creative possible on the web? Is there something that will actually work that traditional advertisers can bother with and justify spending their time with?

Harris Millard: I think that one of the things we did with our creativity initiative, not only for these conferences was we "anointed" 4 rich media vendors as safe for the long term. We said, look, Yahoo is going to be doing a lot business with these companies. We're saying, "These are going to be the standards of advertising." Big players need to do things like that. They need to say, "I vote for these guys." Because what was happening was that there's so many technologies out there that it's very confusing to marketers, who ask which one does Yahoo accept or AOL, MSN or I-Village or CBS MarketWatch? It gets very confusing, so if one of the big guys like Yahoo puts a stake in the ground and says "Okay, we're going to focus most of our energies here." That was hugely helpful, that was a turning point. There are very good technologies out there. I don't think it's a technology problem; it's really a learning curve problem. I think it's fair to say in the last 9 months that the barometer of quality creativity has begun to rise. And part of it is because we're all making this effort and recognizing it's not about the "T's and C's." folks. It's about the work and about finding a way to relate to the consumer. I think it's less of a technology issue than about getting people up the learning curve a little bit. I'm pretty encouraged by what I'm seeing, although I will also be the first to admit that 10 years from now I'll look back and go, "I can't believe I ever thought that was advertising on the internet!" But I am encouraged. I think we're doing a lot better.

McHale: Are there any brands in particular that you're working with?

Harris Millard: Well, one of the campaigns I thought was breakthrough was the General Electric campaign. That was a combination of Atmosphere, BBDO, OMD & Yahoo. I was very encouraged to see that kind of work. For many many reasons, not the least of which was it was the first GE effort online. It was an incredible piece of work. It was breakthrough. I think there's been a lot of new work. There's Frito-Lay itself, great work. The Gap has done some really really wonderful work. There's a ton of it...Automotive, Entertainment, The Hulk last week was incredible! Cingular has been doing some good work. That's just a few!

McHale: How do you think the industry has been selling itself?

Harris Millard: Well, first of all, let me say that, we are! Which is a start. I'm not sure that we were for several years. I think we were "the sales prevention industry" by behavior. So number one, as an industry, we are selling ourselves. That's a cool start. I like a lot of what the IAB is doing. I think we have sort of recalibrated. You have on the IAB board some very focused, committed Internet executives. We don't have a board that changes every week. There's a lot of stability now at the IAB. There's a lot of focus on what we need to do. I think we are maturing as an industry through the IAB, and that really is the lead vehicle for selling ourselves. I think that one the most important things we've done as an industry is to stop the silliness and the foolishness that we are the magic potion, the "be all and end all" and nobody else really matters. That was so damaging to us. I think the focus on our being a part of the mix and focusing on how you add value as part of the mix, that's very good stuff. The cross-media studies, the campaign that talks about, "if you have a Television base, here's what adding Internet can do for you." Or if you have a print base. It's a much more mature attitude. I think we still have our challenges in the standards area, standards for measurement, standards for creativity. It's time we got to a lot of that, but again I think we are very focused as an IAB board and as an industry.

McHale: Last question, what do you find most fun these days?

Harris Millard: I think probably, sitting in a room and hearing Bill Lamar from McDonald's say "It's not about :30 commercial anymore." Sitting in that room and hearing CJ Frawley (GM's executive director of advertising) say we are going to be spending a lot more money outside of traditional.

McHale: Do you believe them?

Harris Millard: Do I believe it? Oh absolutely. In every last part of my body. I've been waiting 8 years for this and I will wait another 8 years. Because it takes a long time to change a Procter and Gamble, a General Motors, a McDonalds. But to sit in a room and finally hear them say - what I know that they should have said when we all started - that is very fun! And you're hearing it with more frequency and with bigger companies. So I absolutely believe it. It's always a question of time. It is very difficult for those major major companies to change. Those are big old boats! But when you have leaders like a Lamar or a Frawley saying that in public - they are not speaking without a great deal of thought - they know they're going to say that. They throw those lines across the bow and then the rest of the industry tries to figure out, thinking, "Uh oh, what does that mean to me?" Yes, I do believe it. And we're seeing it. We are absolutely seeing it. You look at the advertising that's on Yahoo and you're seeing all those big brands. That's the most fun. It's getting confirmation that I was not, and am not, crazy!

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