’Need Something’ Ad Campaign

My colleague Charles Laughlin posted about the YellowPages.com "Need Something" ad campaign when it officially launched earlier this week.

Here’s more on the size and reach of the campaign from ClickZ. You can view the online ads here and the TV ads here.

I think both sets of ads are quite effective (in particular the TV spots are clever). It remains to be seen whether the campaign will have the desired impact and help burn the YellowPages.com brand into consumers’ minds as a local search destination. At a minimum, I think they will get consumers who are currently unaware of the site to check it out.

As I’ve written before, there has to be a there there when consumers show up. And the site has made great strides in usability. Yet YellowPages.com must continue to develop itself as a consumer destination to be competitive over the long term. An intuitive URL and great brand are only part of the equation. Of course, Charles Stubbs and his team know this very well.

YellowPages.com is also being quite aggressive in developing a distribution network and recently announced a significant partnership with Yahoo! (an extension and expansion of the previous SBC, BellSouth deals).

Surveying the local online space, we can see not only growth and opportunity, but furious competition as well. It’s a very exciting as well as perilous time for traditional media companies, including Yellow Pages publishers, trying to develop their online properties into real growth and revenue engines.

It’s great to see YellowPages.com really putting the "pedal to the metal" (to use an old colloquialism) in promoting itself and trying to build consumer awareness.

I believe this campaign is coming at the right time and really has a shot at "priming the pump" but YellowPages.com must continue to innovate and focus on the user experience if it really wants the campaign to pay long-term dividends.