• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 7, 2008

Yellowbook has overhauled its branding, marketing and advertising message to focus on the future in an effort to compete better with online and print directory rivals AT&T, Verizon, and R.H. Donnelley.

 

A full-page print ad in USA Today unveiled the campaign Monday. Two 30-second television spots run on a variety of cable and broadcast networks such as CNN, History Channel, Fox News, Headline News, and TNT. Radio commercials are also planned.

While Yellowbook has historically advertised through search ads on Google and Yahoo, plans to become more aggressive with online display ads beginning June or July are in the works.

A focus on the future aims to communicate to consumers that Yellowbook will provide information regardless of the medium, as businesses continue to test new services it plans to offer. For example, advertisers in select markets can run a link on yellowbook.com to a 30- or 60-second video interview that gives consumers insight into their businesses.

As part of the "futuristic" feel, CMO Gordon Henry says Yellowbook plans to roll out features on yellowbook.com enabling "commentary and interactive communication between consumers who want to talk about what they found either in the Yellowbook campaign or Web site." Mobile ads, widgets, and social network sites are being considered as ways to push the company forward.

The words "Yellow" and "Book" now form one word to demonstrate continuity with yellowbook.com. The print book cover will change to reflect a cleaner and sleeker look in late 2008 or early 2009. To update the logo's look, the company nixed the book, allowing the fingers to walk or run through pages, pointing or clicking, demonstrating openness and an array of search options. "We wanted to show people the companies moving in a new direction, very much focused on the future and how people search for information," Henry says.

Local businesses have relied on Yellowbook for more than 75 years to drive and support their client base. While 87% of Americans use traditional Yellow Pages, it's no secret that a higher percentage goes online. Henry claims nearly 700,000 advertisers, and says that about half have moved online.

For Yellowbook, the "Say Yellow to the Future" campaign represents an evolution in thinking. The campaign highlights a move toward assisting local businesses to remain visible and accessible to consumers relying more on information that comes from both paper and digital formats, from computers and television, to mobile phones, widgets and quick response codes (QR codes) printed on posters.

In one new TV spot set in the future, a bullied boy returns from school with a wedgie. He turns to Yellowbook on his touch screen and a holographic image leaps into his living room--transforming the boy into a martial arts whiz, brimming with self-confidence. A second ad, also set in the future, features Blanca Soto, former Miss Mexico World, as a bride-to-be who needs to have an embarrassing tattoo removed before her wedding.

In Soto's TV spot, consumers hear a few bars from the traditional "Wedding March." Dressed in white and silver, she reaches for her interactive Yellowbook guide on a touch-screen panel in her living room. She locates tattoo removal businesses. A man appears in the screen, and Soto turns to reveal a tattoo across her lower back reading "Mike." She's marrying Tom. The announcer says "Yellowbook will help you find what you're always looking for. Say Yellow to the future."

Yellowbook developed the campaign in partnership with Manhattan-based ad agency Gotham. The television spots were shot by Vadim Perelman, director of "The House of Sand and Fog" and "The Life Before Her Eyes."