The global directories company Hibu is apparently beginning to de-emphasize its corporate brand in favor of its old moniker Yell. This is according to an article today in the British newspaper The Evening Standard.

Hibu has been undergoing substantial change recently. Last year, lenders took control of the company, removed its CEO Mike Pocock, and sent much of Pocock’s leadership team packing as well. David Eckert replaced Pocock and has since focused on rebuilding the company by cutting costs and killing under-performing or low-margin products and services. Now, it appears the new leadership is focusing on the brand.

The Hibu brand is closely associated with Pocock’s tenure, during which the company’s fortunes went from bad to worse. It’s therefore no surprise that Hibu would begin to distance itself from the corporate brand and try to revive Yell, the brand that reigned during better times.

According to the Evening Standard article, Hibu employees, in the UK at least, are now expected to say they work for Yell, not Hibu. It’s worth noting that while Hibu has been pushed down from corporate to the consumer level, the brand Yell never entirely went away on the print side of the business.

Hibu operates print and digital directories, and sells digital services like website production and hosting, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Latin America.

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The global directories company Yell Group, which is fighting a rapidly declining core business as it shifts to new digital products, has announced it will be changing its name to Hibu, pending the approval of its shareholders in July.

The name change is in keeping with the recent practice in Yellow Pages of changing the corporate brand in order to enable the company to pivot into new product areas without the “baggage” of the Yellow Pages label. From this logic was born Sensis, Truvo, Eniro and Idearc, among others. Most of these players used brand consulting firms to create the names, while another company following the trend, Israel’s Golden Pages, adopted its new Zap brand from a comparison shopping engine that it acquired.

A common feature of these new corporate names is that they are essentially meaningless, so that with effective marketing, a company can apply meaning to them. In general, however, transforming the name has been easier than transforming the business.

Idearc is no longer used; it’s now called SuperMedia. Eniro was successful in building brand awareness for its name in the Nordic markets, but the company recently adopted one of its regional brands, Kvasir, as its brand for new digital products, suggesting Eniro has become associated with the business’ legacy products. Hibu’s success depends on Yell effectively and authentically transforming its business and associating the new brand with a company that is fully digital, not one that is straddling traditional and new media.

Yell has been undergoing a radical transformation since its leadership changed with the 2011 retirement of John Condron. Current CEO Mike Pocock is trying to shift the business from a directory publisher to a provider of local e-marketplaces.

The financial results announced Tuesday underscore the company’s urgency of finding new revenue streams. The company’s situation is made worse by a nagging debt load, which has prompted Yell to retain Goldman Sachs and Greenhill to help it build a new capital structure. Further, Yell wrote down the value of its main assets, which contributed to a GBP 1.4 billion loss for the year.

For the year ended March 31, 2012, Yell Group reported total revenues of GBP 1.61 billion, down 14 percent from GBP 1.88 billion in FY20112. The company’s core revenues, which it defines as print and online directories across all its markets, are falling at an accelerating pace, while its new digital products are growing nicely, but from a small base. Unless Yell can stabilize its core, it is going to need a lot more revenues from new products to turn things around, which helps explain the company’s urgent pace of new partnerships and acquisitions to add new products to the sales bag.

We will offer a more detailed analysis of Yell’s results in an upcoming brief for clients of The Kelsey Report.

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Today, Yell announced its acquisition of Moonfruit, a United Kingdom DIY website and online shop builder, for approximately GBP 18 million, funded out of Yell’s cash reserves. Retention bonuses of up to GBP 5.2 million will be paid to key members of Moonfruit management after two years, provided that they remain exclusively employed by Yell. The acquisition is part of Yell’s transformation strategy from an SME online advertising provider to become a leader in the emerging local eMarketplace.

The eMarketplace is a platform and digital portal where both consumers and SMEs can make connections and transactions. Moonfruit will assist Yell in enhancing its ability to provide websites, mobile sites and basic commerce services to SMEs. Earlier in the year, we noted that Yell clients have an ongoing interest in digital services. Its Q1 2012 results saw an 11 percent growth in the digital services offering. In addition, the deal also complements Yell’s acquisition of multi-store e-commerce company Znode last year. While Znode provides SME with enterprise opportunities through its e-commerce platform, Moonfruit offers them light commerce services. The lighter offerings are for SMEs that have a smaller number of products.

Moonfruit launched in the U.K. 12 years ago as a platform to make the Web more accessible for local businesses and consumers. When a customer builds a Moonfruit site, he or she can also add a commerce option, a mobile presence, and build a Facebook store from the same platform. About 5 million websites and 230,000 online shops in the U.K. and U.S. use Moonfruit technology. Updated HTML 5 versions of their sites that build on their existing HTML 5 mobile and Facebook versions will be launched later this year.

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Yell announced this week that Microsoft MSN Partner and Producer Scott Moore will join Yell Group as its chief digital officer. Moore will report to Yell Group CEO Mike Pocock and will be based at a new Yell office in Seattle. Moore will lead the creation and development of Yell’s new products and services that are aimed at SMB customers and consumers. The Seattle office will serve as a central hub to coordinate Yell’s digital development activities.

Moore’s position is a new one, part of Yell Group’s shift from print advertising to create an eMarketplace, an online platform and portal that connects consumers and SMBs. Yell Group already has a partnership with Microsoft. Yell uses Microsoft’s cloud-computing tools, including Office 365, in its eMarketplace.

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Yell plans to restructure its global operation and focus on “owning” local search as it tries to defend its business from rivals Google and Groupon. In February, the Yellow Pages publisher saw its shares drop by more than 10 percent to less than 9 percent, the lowest since listing on the stock exchange in July 2003. During that time, we reported a new strategy would come down the pike by summer 2011.

“We have to become relevant in digital media. We are moving, we just have to have a more robust, well thought through strategic plan,” said Yell CEO Michael Pocock to MediaGuardian. Revenues from digital media accounts make up 25 percent of Yell’s total revenues, which continue to fall as the print advertising business tumbles around 20 percent per quarter.

Yell’s relationships with its local advertisers provides a leg up over the competition, Pocock told MediaGuardian, also claiming that none of the top three competitors, Groupon, Yahoo or Google, has outside sales forces. He also added that the company would be restructured to operate as a group in areas such as IT, procurement, branding and product development. Although more efficient, Pocock says the bulk of savings from the restructuring would not come at the expense of cutting jobs.

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In an internal memorandum announcing the change, Condron said: “At the heart of this year’s business plan is the imperative to position ourselves correctly to accelerate away from this recession. We already have most of the ingredients in place: a great sales organization, a great and trusted brand, great customer solutions and leading edge technologies. But to exploit these advantages fully, we need to quick our decision taking and to ensure complete alignment within marketing and sales.”

Condron continued: “We have to apply our considerable resources wisely to maximize our ability to serve increasingly complex customer needs. I am therefore combining sales, UK market development and new media marketing into a single team under Mark Canon.”

Reporting to Canon under the new structure are Mitch Connolly, director of sales operations; Sarah Kiddell, sales director, development; and CMO Helen Stevenson and her team.

This move raises the obvious question whether the move is a signal that Canon is in line for a promotion to CEO when Condron does step down, or if this is merely a measure to ensure the company executes at a high level during the transition. Regardless, it does signal that Canon has made a mark at Yell and has earned Condron’s confidence.

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In an internal memorandum announcing the change, Condron said: “At the heart of this year’s business plan is the imperative to position ourselves correctly to accelerate away from this recession. We already have most of the ingredients in place: a great sales organization, a great and trusted brand, great customer solutions and leading edge technologies. But to exploit these advantages fully, we need to quick our decision taking and to ensure complete alignment within marketing and sales.”

Condron continued: “We have to apply our considerable resources wisely to maximize our ability to serve increasingly complex customer needs. I am therefore combining sales, UK market development and new media marketing into a single team under Mark Canon.”

Reporting to Canon under the new structure are Mitch Connolly, director of sales operations; Sarah Kiddell, sales director, development; and CMO Helen Stevenson and her team.

This move raises the obvious question whether the move is a signal that Canon is in line for a promotion to CEO when Condron does step down, or if this is merely a measure to ensure the company executes at a high level during the transition. Regardless, it does signal that Canon has made a mark at Yell and has earned Condron’s confidence.

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In addition to the visual enhancements, Yell.com has added “shortlists,” which enable the user to create favorite lists that they can share via e-mail, Facebook or Twitter.

Yell.com has also, separately, introduced a video channel. The channel allows SMBs to upload videos for free and is part of an overall effort to promote the use of video as a promotional vehicle. At this stage, the video channel primarily features SMBs in Central London.

The idea of an immersive Yellow Pages idea has been gaining traction, particularly among European directory publishers. European Directories has embraced the concept.

The French publisher PagesJaunes has long featured a highly visual online experience. Seat PG features 3-D images in its TuttoCitta.it mapping product. Boston-based EveryScape is an early innovator in bringing the immersive experience to local online media.

And then, of course, there is Google Street View.

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We’ve been listening to earnings webcasts for the major global directory publishers over the past days, trying to pick up any clues for how publishers see 2010 developing. Most publishers have shortened their guidance horizon or have stopped giving it altogether. In many cases, the banks and hedge fund analysts on the calls are pressing CEOs and CFOs pretty hard for any indication absent of formal guidance of how the year is shaping up.

What we are hearing on these calls is a hint of cautious optimism that the rate of decline in print revenues has bottomed out and in some cases the rate of decline may be slowing.

For example, here is what SuperMedia CFO Dee Jones said on last week’s earnings call:

“From an ad sales perspective we feel that we are in the valley. Our ad sales for the fourth quarter, on top of what we did in the third quarter, indicate to us that we are in the valley. It is too early to tell when we get out of the valley.”

Jones later clarified that he was referring to the rate of decline in ad sales. For the full year 2009, SuperMedia’s ad sales were down by 18.7 percent. SuperMedia, which emerged from bankruptcy on December 31, has stopped breaking out its revenue performance by segment (print, online and other), which it had done through the third quarter of last year.

Here is what Yell Group CEO John Condron said on his company’s Feb. 4 call announcing its third quarter and year to date earnings (the company’s financial year ends March 31):

“We are still experiencing revenue pressure. However, the rate of decline is stabilizing, and there is a significant increase in confidence.”

Through three quarters, Yell Group posted a group revenue decline of 13.3 percent at a constant exchange rate.

Pressed on this point during the questions and answers session, Yell CFO John Davis conceded that “We have a Long way to go. The rates of decline are still in double digits.”

Still, both Condron and Davis continue to argue that the negative performance of directories, print in particular, is largely the result of the brutal 2008-2009 economic environment, and not a long-term secular shift. A recent (unscientific) BIA/Kelsey online survey of industry insiders suggests that many if not most in the industry believe the declines are the result of a combination of secular and cyclical forces.

At this stage of the year at most directory companies, the (calendar) first quarter and much of the second quarter revenue has already been sold.

These comments suggest essentially that the business is stabilizing and no further deterioration from the abyss that was 2009 is expected. Perhaps there may even be a modest improvement in the rate of decline as the year progresses.

BIA/Kelsey expects 2010 to be a year where the directories business stabilizes. The degree to which things improve in 2011 and beyond will be driven in part by the performance of the economy, but perhaps even more so by the directory companies themselves.

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Yell’s decision furthers a global trend to reduce the footprint of print directories, with the primary stated objective of increasing possession and usage, particularly in large markets. Reducing the size of the book also lowers costs and improves the environmental friendliness of the book, or at least enhances the product’s green image.

In the United States, Yellowbook (a division of Yell) has converted several of its directory titles to a compact format, with the tagline “new eco-friendly size.” While today’s announcement does not reference Yellowbook, BIA/Kelsey would expect that Yellowbook will soon follow Yell’s lead and covert most or all of its print directories to the smaller format.

Other publishers that are widely using the compact format for their main Yellow Pages directories include Eniro and PagesJaunes.

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