A key transitional milestone for the U.S. Yellow Pages industry -- becoming a majority digital business -- is about two years away, according to an updated BIA/Kelsey forecast released today. The forecast, which builds on the 2012-17 forecast released in…
Print Yellow Pages was (just barely) on top in the General Services advertising category in 2012, generating almost $3.8 billion from this vertical. General Services is comprised of 12 different categories, including legal, accounting, janitorial, landscaping and various professional, scientific…
The Sweden-based local search company Eniro has acquired some of the assets of De Gule Sider in Denmark, the Yellow Pages operation closed down recently by European Directories. EDSA has made the decision to discontinue print directories in Denmark, where…
Seems every year is a year of transformation in the global Yellow Pages industry. This year is no different, with more leadership changes, financial turmoil, and a much more aggressive push into new strategies and new products. There is a…
Last week several of the leading listed directory companies saw sizable spikes in their stock prices following their Q3 earnings announcements, though the surge seems to have died off today. For example, Dex One announced its earnings on Nov. 3. On…
What does digital transformation truly look like? And how far along the path to a new revenue model are directional publishers? Those questions were front and center at DMS ’11, as Dex One Chief Strategy Officer David Sharman, YP New…
Two signficant leadership changes have occurred in the global Yellow Pages industry over the past few days. In Canada, Yellow Media CFO Christian Paupe has resigned to "pursue other interests." His departure is effective immediately. Yellow Media, a leading print…
Yellow Pages has yielded the top spot for local business lookups to search engines like Google and Bing, but it still holds a significant spot in the local search hierarchy, according to new data released today by the Local Search Association.
The latest “Local Media Tracking Study” shows that search engines rank higher than Yellow Pages (print and digital combined) in monthly reach (67 percent vs. 62 percent), while combined Yellow Pages still has the edge over search in annual reach (84 percent vs. 76 percent). Print Yellow Pages alone, however, has fallen behind search in both annual (78 percent to 74 percent) and monthly (67 percent to 49 percent) reach.
LSA President Neg Norton said in a briefing last week that the study reflects the new direction of the association, which earlier this year changed its name from the Yellow Pages Association.
“This is an example of how the association is changing,” he said. “This is not a Yellow Pages study. It is a more holistic look at the local landscape.”
The Local Search Association filed suit today against the City and County of San Francisco, the Board of Supervisors, and Mayor Edwin Lee asking the U.S. District Court to overturn the city's recently passed opt-in ordinance. The suit claims that the…
2010 was a dismal year for the New Zealand branch of Deutsche Bank after exposure to the Yellow Pages Group restructuring. The KPMG Financial Institutions Performance Survey issued last week shows that Deutsche ranked at the bottom out of 10…
Yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed the opt-in ordinance that the Yellow Pages industry had vigorously opposed. Immediately following the vote, the Local Search Association (formerly the Yellow Pages Association) called on San Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee to veto the ordinance. The ordinance passed 10-1 but formal passage must wait until a routine “second reading” next week, which is likely to be a rubber stamp.
The ordinance is the first opt-in (where consumers must proactively choose to receive a print directory) measure to pass in the United States. While the industry sees opt-out (where consumers can choose not to receive a book) as a serious challenge, it has viewed opt-in as a lethal threat. Opt-in could decimate reach, increase costs and drive secondary operators out of business.
Proponents argue that in an era of declining usage, ubiquitous distribution is incredibly wasteful. if someone wants a book, no one is stopping him or her from requesting one under an opt-in plan.
The San Francisco ordinance is positioned as a “three-year pilot program” that will commence in 2012. The ordinance was proposed based on environmental concerns as well as concerns over the cost of disposing of unwanted phone books.
The Yellow Pages industry has failed to win a preliminary injunction or restraining order from a U.S. District Court in Seattle. This mean the Seattle opt-out ordinance can move forward as the industry pursues its lawsuit seeking to have the ordinance ruled unconstitutional. This decision…
The recent implosion of TMP has led to the creation of a new digital agency called, aptly enough, 2nd Act Local Marketing. Its founders are Gregg Stewart, Will Foust and Steve Haar, all veterans of 15miles, the digital advertising agency arm…
Crushed by a "perfect storm" of debt and declining revenues, TMP, once the dominant player in the Yellow Pages agency (CMR) space, will cease to exist within a few days. However, we have learned that several of the agency's more valuable…
The Wall Street Journal reported this week that AT&T Interactive will join the growing list of directory companies to launch a daily deal site. AT&T Interactive CEO David Krantz told The Journal that he believes AT&T could be "fast followers"…
Following a discussion of its 2010 full-year results, Dex One’s leadership team outlined a new strategy today that it says will restore the company to positive revenue growth by the second half of 2012, with print stabilizing to single-digit declines.
One of the key elements will be the Dex Guaranteed Actions, a performance-based model tested beginning last year in Phoenix and recently launched in Seattle and Minneapolis, with a gradual rollout in other markets. The program essentially guarantees advertisers a predetermined number of business leads.
Dex leaders say the program succeeded in changing the sales conversation from price to performance, and is seen as a key element in the company’s efforts to stability print revenue declines from their current high double digits to mid-single digits within two years.
CEO Alfred Mockett and his team outlined a number of key objectives and supporting initiatives, among them:
* The company projects it will move from 10 percent digital to 30 percent digital revenues by 2012.
* DexOne is planning to convert its 2.2 million free business listings into paid. Mockett describes free listings as an “historical anachronism.” Converting to paid will generate revenues and also direct more leads to paid advertisers, Mockett said.
* The company is investing in its sales force, arming it with iPads and launching the Dex One Sales Academy to improve both initial and ongoing sales training.
Yellow Pages Group New Zealand has agreed to surrender Internet domain names associated with one of its competitors, which sued YPG for trademark infringement. The suit was brought by the Localist, a local online directory competitor owned by the New…
The French directory publisher PagesJaunes has joined the growing list of global Yellow Pages companies that are building or buying their way into the deal-a-day space. PagesJaunes has acquired the French group buying site top-deals.fr, and has rebranded the product…
According to the Australian media news site mUmBRELLA, Sensis has soft-launched a daily deals product called Yellow Pages Offers that is currently live in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. There has been no formal launch, but the site has reportedly been…
The City of Seattle has modified its tough Yellow Pages opt-out ordinance, but apparently not sufficiently to make a federal lawsuit challenging the ordinance go away. The city has eliminated a $148 per ton fee for Yellow Pages deliveries in…
