How Will Carol Bartz Feel About Consorting with the Press?
And now, putting shivers into executives and managers everywhere, the words, "let's do a reassessment."
It's as
predictable as Claude Rains' Captain Renault in Casablanca. Instead
of rounding up the usual suspects,
thought, new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will be rounding up the usual assessments. You know, what
do we have?/what should we keep?/what should we get rid of? That's not
a stack the newspaper companies want their hugely important Yahoo
Consortium ad plans dropped onto. But, there's an inevitability to it.
The fact that Carol Bartz' first act was to announce that Sue Decker is
out undoubtedly sent a shiver down newspaper spines. Decker and her
protege Hilary Schneider, late of Knight Ridder Digital, have been the
high-profile champions of the consortium. So after the Decker shoe
dropped, the next one to look for is Schneider's. Golden slipper or Goodwill model? If she stays in place
or ascends, the consortium can breathe easier. If she's gone soon
herself, all bets are off.
Operationally, the project is in Vice President of US Partnerships Lem Lloyd's well-organized hands. Dozens of newspapers are finding some new gold in selling Yahoo inventory in
their own markets. In addition, there are now more than three dozen sites up on the APT ad platform — the first two
(the Chronicle and Mercury News), Belo's four sites and a phalanx of
North Carolina properties that are starting to bring the full bore of
behavioral targeting to the Tar Heel State. Next up in March: the New York Times Regional Group, Media General, Lee, Journal Register, Philly, Paddock and the Columbus Dispatch. Then more into summer and fall. (Good take overall from Alan Mutter, and to the point of what's going on with local salesforces, Newsosaur.)
In total, Yahoo Consortium members account for about 40% of US newspaper circulation. So the Yahoo deal — and much-anticipated Yahoo Bump is a big deal. It's one of the few growth stories newspaper companies have any hope of telling in a dismal 2009.
While early sales are good, Bartz is going to be asking the ROI
question. With the dozens of Yahoo staffers building and supporting the
newspaper consortium, how much ROI is in it — compared to what else
Yahoo could be doing with those resources, if it keeps those resources at all.
Observers
have already pointed out that Bartz has no background in advertising,
in the Internet or in media, though her management credentials are
well-attested to. Her lack of experience in advertising and media
doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate them,
but they are clearly not in her comfort zone. Curiously the
consortium is a B2B ad play, and Bartz does know B2B, and maybe she
takes Yahoo more in that direction. The newspaper consortium has turned
out to be Yahoo's first big B2B play, and it has learned some hard
lessons — early uneven execution, the difficulties of dealing with
diverse customers who each like it their own way.
Or maybe it's part ROI and part gut instinct. Maybe Bartz reads the (thinning)
newspapers and decides that there's not a lot of upside in her company
investing its resources heavily in association with what looks like a
dying industry.
Yes, the dreaded reassessment, and it will come quickly. Despite her words — "Yahoo has
unfortunately been battered a lot in the last year. Let's
give this company some friggin' breathing room." — she knows the economic times don't provide much air.
Meanwhile, from Mountain
View, Google waits, watches and drops 100 recruiters (leaving 300! in place), understanding it missed a major
opportunity to align its ad programs with newspaper companies more than a year ago and considers what it might do with a second
chance.