1. What is Yahoo?

  (Company Overview/ Background information about the company,

history, founder(s) Markets, competitors, segments, target audiences

Yahoo! is the premier digital media company. It was founded in 1994 by two Standford
PhD candidates, David Filo and Jerry Yang. Yahoo! became a company that helps people
search the Web and look for what they need. Yahoo! now is a leading global brand that
creates personal digital experiences using technology, insights based on data, and
intuition. More than half a billion consumers (which is 1 out of every 2 internet users)
now use Yahoo! to get trusted information and to connect with people, communities,
topics, and trends in the most simple and trusted ways. Yahoo! focuses on creating
content, communication, and community platform that spreads consumer experience and
advertising solutions around the world in more than 30 languages.

Yahoo! is different than its competitors including Google, MSN, and AOL because it
delivers the internet experience that people wish for. That happens through a more
personal and segmented experience Yahoo! users go through depending on their
location, interests, and demographics. Yahoo! follows a strategy in making it your
world, your way.

2. Why is Yahoo! so popular? (Attributes or advantages, benefits and value, FAB+

Value)

Yahoo! was able to become popular and stand out among other websites in the World Wide
Web. This popularity could be best described by the FAB elements, which are Features,
Advantages, and value. To start with the features:

Features:

 What's Cool: Yahoo! presents its users with information that is considered “cool”
and match the taste of their users who find this information amusing, extraordinary,
or especially useful content.
 What's New: Yahoo! sends the latest information simultaneously along with what
have happened in the previous week.
  Random Link: Yahoo! provides their users with random links from their database
where the users would be surfed into a website that would most probably match their
taste.
 Headlines: Yahoo! provides their users with the latest information, and what is
happening on the spot along with some particular categories such as Business,
Entertainment, Sports, International, and U.S. Politics.
 Picks of the Week: is updated weekly, and contains websites rated as “good” for
different reasons e.g. timely, enlightening, crazy…etc. It also includes the weekly
world tour, stressing good stuff in regional categories.
 Yahoo! for the Day: everyday Yahoo! presents a range of sites from its new
additions that are thought to be important

Advantages:

Naming yahoo’s advantages, the 3 I’s could be the most descriptive:

-Instant: Yahoo! can be considered as an immediate website, meaning that users can find
the information they are looking for at anytime without any difficulties.

- Interactivity: With yahoo’s website, Users can easily communicate with each others. For
example, through the Yahoo! messenger users can easily communicate with each other at
anytime and in any place.

-Individualization (customization): In yahoo’s website, customers choose what kind of

information they would want to receive according to their personal interests, as a result, It is
considered to be more personal which would add up to yahoos advantages.

Value:

Yahoo! added up to the value of its users because it combines the new technology with what
people need, along with generating an engaging and meaningful experience. Their main
concern is to keep Yahoo! users entertained, productive and informed. Yahoo’s mission is to
make the information that matters to users whether in their world or the world around them
convenient at any time and at any place. And, as a result this makes the users’ experience
 customized and the digital world more and more personal which also adds up to the value of
their users. Yahoo’s website monitors the users’ passions and interests, and lets them get
more from the Web so they can get more out of life. Last but not least, the fame of Yahoo! is
explained through the FAB elements, not only that but its success in being a global brand
happened through communicating its mission and their vision globally, which is being the
center of people’s online lives.

3. Is Yahoo! popular in the UAE?

According to web traffic analysis in the United Arab Emirates and the Middle East, Yahoo!
has been the most visited website on the Internet, with more than 412 million unique users.
Yahoo! provides a wide array of internet services that cater to most online activities. It
operates the web portal http://www.yahoo.com which provides contents including the latest
news, Yahoo! Finance and gives users quick access to other Yahoo! services like Yahoo!
Mail, Yahoo! Maps, Yahoo! Groups and Yahoo! Messenger. Over 50% of the users on
network visit to use their Yahoo! email.

4. Please use the Simple Marketing Classification System(Figure 4-1) to focus your

consideration of Yahoo! marketing activities in the Internet environment

If we look at the “Simple Marketing Classification System” to analyze Yahoo’s marketing

system we will see that it follows those three categories: Market coverage, Offers, Status.

The tables below summarize Yahoo’s marketing classification according to the “Simple

Marketing Classification System” figure.

 Offers Status

Digital
Information

Service

Interactive

Entertainment

Mixed
Content/Information

Market Coverage
Local

National

Regional

International

Global
5. Please visit Yahoo! website and identify the key features of Yahoo! Internet
marketing. (Please see textbook, p. 133)

Having the following survives on Yahoo! website are the key features of Yahoo! internet
marketing:

1. Yahoo! being international

2. Yahoo! search
3. Internet search result advertising
4. Yahoo! Mail
5. Yahoo! Answers- regional
6. Yahoo! Business
7. Yahoo! Finance
8. Maktoob Mail
9. Cricket
10. Flickr
11. Movies
12. Sports
13. Safety oasis

6. Please create a web-marketing plan that aims at launching Yahoo! Middle East.

Executive Summary:

Yahoo! is a premier digital media company that focuses on creating content,

communication, a community platform that spreads consumer experience and advertising
solutions around the world in more than 30 languages. To increase the popularity of
Yahoo! to a greater target audience, a series of features will be added in a SMART web
marketing plan that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely. The web-
marketing plan will be formulated to meet specific objectives that are geared towards
making Yahoo! better satisfy customer needs and meet business goals. The objectives
are:
 - To provide Yahoo! customers with the most user-friendly interface and experience.
- To expand along greater markets, specifically the middle-eastern market and different
countries in order to meet up with competition.
- To provide the most productive and qualified search results for end users to sustain a
status as the most trustworthy search engine.
- To become a top of mind brand for Internet users specifically those in search for
information.
- To provide alternative multi-lingual Yahoo! platforms in the most popular and
official languages worldwide, which include (Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic,
Russian, German, etc)

Company Analysis:

Yahoo! is an American company that provides a variety of services and platforms on the
Internet. It is the premier digital media company, which was founded in 1994 by two
Standford PhD candidates, David Filo and Jerry Yang. Yahoo! became a company that helps
people search the Web and look for what they need. Yahoo! now is a leading global brand
that creates personal digital experiences using technology, insights based on data, and
intuition. It is also one of the most visited websites on the Internet, having more than half a
billion consumers (which is 1 out of every 2 internet users) who use Yahoo! to get trusted
information and connect with people, communities, topics, and trends in simple and
trustworthy ways.

Purpose: Yahoo’s purpose is to operate, store, and track information. To provide Internet
users with a variety of reliable content, which include news, entertainment, sports, and give
them access to Internet communication platforms that include Yahoo! mail, Yahoo!
messenger, Yahoo! maps, Yahoo! finance, Yahoo! groups, Yahoo! mobile, Yahoo! shopping,
etc.

Goal: To increase market share in the Middle Eastern region and reach a larger number of
Arab users by launching the Yahoo! website and all the Yahoo! platforms in the Arabic
language.

The Market Situation:

 Competition: Yahoo’s major competitors are Google, Microsoft, AOL, and even lately
Facebook. Google counts as the largest competition because it is a search engine very similar
to Yahoo! and holds the largest share of the online advertising market. It is also the most
visited search engine because it is convenient and extremely user friendly. On the other hand,
Yahoo! also suffers from great competition with the Facebook platform because of its large
user base that drives traffic to its site and therefore attracts more advertisers.

Market environment and distribution channel:

The market environment focuses on looking at both the internal and external situations that
affect Yahoo’s popularity, and its market share of users and advertisers. These can be
demonstrated through a simplified SWOT analysis.

STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES
- Yahoo! is a popular and well - Differentiation is difficult for Yahoo.
established brand in the market with Almost all of its services are also
more than 350 million users of its available from other sources.
services and solutions - Online advertising is a major income
- Yahoo! has a strong mobile market for Yahoo! but it used heavily in
 with Internet services personalized techniques that can drive users away
for the user and designed for to alternative option. Ex: popup ads
different phones
- Yahoo! provides a large variety of
products and platforms for it users
internationally.
- Yahoo! has strong partnerships with
VISA and MLB
OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
- International markets and niche - All of Yahoos’ services have
markets have a large number of powerful competitors such as AOL,
Internet users. They can be reached Google, etc.
by providing them with relevant - Google is widely popular on a local
services and platforms. and international level; it holds
- The Development of the Yahoo! approximately 50% of all online
Directory has potential for new searches.
business and income streams. - Social media websites such as
- The increasing popularity of Internet Facebook and twitter are also on the
access on mobile devices encourages rise and taking up most online
for future mobile services and advertising.
solutions.

Distribution Channel: Yahoo! is a company that follows the only clicks business model,
wherein all its products and services are offered only online. The distribution channel for
Yahoo! is the Yahoo! website itself “ http://yahoo.com “, which integrates all of its
different platforms and services all in one place for offering the user with the uttermost
convenience. All of the Yahoo! platforms including Yahoo! mail, Yahoo! messenger,
 Yahoo! directory, etc can be downloaded directly via the Yahoo! website. The Yahoo!
website serves as the gateway between the user and yahoo’s multiple services.

Forecasting:

This phase foresees the outcomes if the marketing objectives were met.

 Reaching a large international target audience, in specific the Arab majority, who
counts as a big population around the world.
 Increasing advertising revenues and implementing user-friendly advertising
methods.
 Overcoming competitive brands through the number of online searches or
achieving the breakeven point with competition.

Marketing strategy

A series of approaches should be taken in order to effectively meet the marketing

objectives:

- Launching international online advertising campaigns on social media websites

especially in the Middle Eastern region to encourage Internet users to perform their
searches on yahoo.

- Promoting the Yahoo! website through advertisements on MLB, VISA, flicker,

Facebook and twitter.

- Ban pop-up ads and adapt to user-friendly online ad methods.

8.     Can Yahoo! secure a rapid success in creating a major global brand name in the Gulf
region?