India’s largest English-language newspaper, the Times of India, has an interesting print edition front page today – a huge yellow advertisement for Yahoo’s It’s You campaign first announced last month. You can view the print version here.
The newspaper’s circulation as of 2008 was 3.14 million, making it the largest selling English-language daily newspaper (here’s the whole list). Yahoo already has a large presence in India, reaching 26 million of the 35 million online Indians (according to Comscore, August 2009).
What does the ad mean? Who cares. It’s big and yellow. Yahoo has said it hopes to follow up on the ads by personalizing the Yahoo experience for each user.
Thanks to Anand Srinivasan for the tip.
I smell a few photoshops coming.
She seems quite happy about it.
happy about what she holding?
I wonder what this ad is all about. Damn sure it would not have made any difference to TOI readers either. What is this new YOU Yahoo is trying to point at? Are they on the verge of announcing a breakthrough technology? Why is Carol Bartz wasting money on such ads?
Still wondering…
i think there new feature to add user interested sites like gmail, facebook etc to home page of yahoo! rocks. Definitely need a good publicity. Both print and visual.
…nothing to wonder about, really! It’s branding. It’s empowerment. It’s the message that Yahoo! is clearly trying to portray of itself.
Using a young female is giving a number of messages, 1) that Yahoo! is hip on equality, 2) it’s not intimidating technology for women and 3) acknowledges that women are more susceptible to a message of empowerment because history has shown that women’s rights have been suppressed by many cultures.
Purple “Yours” is branding and the yellow background is the perfect backdrop for the purple.
Simple!
see the book What would Google Do. written By Jeff Jarvis.
The guy crystallizes google’s success to the fact that google’s philosophy and hence applications and services give control to the users. “You” so I guess Yahoo is trying to set itself up for something like that.
They know they’ve lost out in the American and major European markets so…. India I suppose…
She is happy because she gets paid for a job where she is shown on all the top newspapers!
+1
+2
And more because she is paid with fully dressed photo. That is unique. It does not happen often nowadays.
@mankind happens in 95 % cases in India .Girls are fully dressed.Which part of earth u live in ??
There was this same ad in the DNA as well (http://www.dnaindia.com/)
This ad also covered the whole front page of Mint, a leading Indian business newspaper – collaboration between Hindustan Times and Wall Street Journal.
http://www.livemint.com/
Print version here http://epaper.dnaindia.com
Also for Hindustan Times – second largest English daily of India.
Yahoo!
CNN and the NY Times just updated their site with this breaking news that the Internet is under management. As to who “yours,” is, that is unknown.
btw, its the world’s largest read english daily (source: en.wikipedia.org)
Why focus so heavily on this bit of trivia? So what? The only reason is because India has lots of people. It is not because the paper reaches far corners of the world like other (less scandalous) papers such as The Sun and USA Today.
So What…. The point is that it reaches a large number of people who spend money…
Here’s the twitpic from other papers http://twitpic.com/kbk8h (LiveMint & Deccan Herald)
Its there on the frontpage of LiveMint(http://www.livemint.com) as well
That phrase about “new management” is a relatively abstract concept. I’m not sure how useful it is considering the average Indian is barely literate and is, for lack of a better word, “primitive” in today’s Western standards.
Perhaps a better phrase in these parts of the world should be: “Yahoo, it’s not just a search engine, it’s also free email !!! Yes, FREE”
have you been to louisiana?
The fact that there is an Indian Governor says nothing about the where the center of the bell curve is as it applies to the massive number of Indians in India. Sure there are smart Indians, but they are exists at the pinched end of the Indian bell curve– a couple of standard deviations from the “typical” Indian.
Yahoo surely didn’t research the demographics that Times of India reaches. You should apply for a job there. They could use your brilliance. It is about time we rednecks taught the world a thing or two. Go trailer trash!
LMAO. Funny thing is India is a parliamentary democracy so they have a “Chief Minister” for a state. They have a Governor too but he/she is merely a figurehead.
Also what makes you think Times of India reaches “average Indians”. It’s in English, so obviously it reaches people who are educated.
The reason you are laughing is because you don’t understand the exchange between “SK” and myself. SK pointed to the State of Louisiana, which is one of the 50 states in the US. The Governor of that state is an Indian. You, in turn, thought I was referring to governors in the Country of India. I wonder is you are still laughing.
The governor of the great state of Lousiana is not an Indian but an American who happens to be of East Indian descent you dumb condescending piece of fecal matter.
The insecure racist is back…
I am not sure he is being racist. It’s you who’s being insecure and misinterpreting what he’s saying. He’s just saying truth.
Oh no..I never said he was being racist here..I just meant it in general..probably you should check this link to see who’s insecure and who’s not..
http://www.mobi...er-low-monthly/
That was not me. Pls note that my blue trademark was missing in that post.
@David Ord.
Oh really?
http://www.mobi...#comment-452158
”
Ignorant? You’re the one who didn’t know about the Indian-eating utensils issue until I mentioned it.
Again, the Chinese aren’t much better. The only true utensils they can be credited with being able to use are chopsticks.”
And this comment has the blue trademark too.
Pwned!
You obviously don’t know a few things or you have ignored them. This advt campaign was run in ‘English’ newspapers in India. English is not primary spoken language in India. Any Indian who can read English newspapers has enough knowledge of ‘western’ standards.
I know India and I know Indians. Because I am not Indian, I think that in a lot of ways it enables me as an “outsider” to understand Indians better than they understand themselves. The saying is it’s hard to see the box when you’re inside the box.
Yeah, that might make sense if they use TV as a medium, since TV viewership for say, sporting events like cricket, is pretty much language independent. In this case though, the medium itself ensures that the ad would be seen primarily by urban English speakers. Also, as pointed out by Mike, the tagline doesn’t really matter, because the purpose of this ad clearly, is brand recall ( hence the vibrant yellow background and the cute girl). In fact the very unsubtle tagline as suggested by you, may result in the snooty English-speaking populace of Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore having a good laugh at the expense of Yahoo and the ad agency concerned. Finally, India might be “primitive” as compared to the West as you say, but do you really we still pay for our e-mail. Obviously you haven’t seen the Russel Peters sketch on cheap Indians!!!
Wow, Indians pay for their emails? Amazing. How much does an email account cost? What company sells them? Wow, just wow. No wonder….
Do you know netzero (one of the largest dial-up company in US) charges for email access – and has a ton of subscribers too!
they’re giving us FREE email??? Phew, finally I can stop sending my messages via PIGEONS!
+2
OMG! Barely literate and already stealing US jobs. What happens whey they get semi-literate? We need to bomb bomb bomb those Indian schools before a moment is lost!
Seriously – get a grip man. The world has become small enough that the only excuse for your ignorance is cultivated stupidity, not a lack of opportunity.
Using your logic, what would be the “only” excuse for Indian illiteracy, now that you’ve tossed “lack of opportunity” out the window?
Got fired recently?
That is a stupid remark that I hear every time an Indian is forced to get defensive. It is arrogant and low-class at the same time. Whether it is true or not, “taking away someone’s job” is nothing to joke about.
it’s survival of the fittest, not survival of ur @ss !
Prevailing when competing is good. Aggrandizing & boasting is unbecoming.
I don’t care about jobs it doesn’t matter to me about some chap’s job in America what I care about and what is the bigger issue is how come the white chaps are taking away our Indian women its a big problem here I’m sure every proud indian man has at one time or another lost a pretty girlfriend to a white chap and I know its a bigger problem in America the Indian women there they wont even look at the Indian man they all date white man many of them marry white man maybe we all feel the white man is superior deep down inside that’s why our women want there offsprings to be white.
oh, you guyz are so cool, what do you study over there ?
idiot !
No David, I can understand what you mean but they published this in an english daily. The ad that you suggest should be in local language and Hindi dailies. Those are barely literate people you mean. For illiterates you always have TV and radio.
I think this works just fine for Times as it’s subscribers are mainly educated urban people. Although, I myself didn’t like the ad. As I said in another reply … too colorful, too yellow for me.
I see Nitin. Thanks for pointing that out in a cordial way.
Nitin probably didn’t read your comments in this article or else he wouldn’t have cared to be so cordial to YOU!…lol
http://www.mobi...er-low-monthly/
That was not me. Pls note that my blue trademark is missing in that comment.
It’s certainly not missing here
http://www.mobi...#comment-452158
“I wonder is you are still laughing.” Yeah and your grammar rocks .
Tit-for-tat aren’t we?
“is” was supposed to be “if.” It was a typo. It had nothing to do with grammar.
If I said “is you still laughing,” my name would probably be Leroy rather than David. LOL!!!
Michael, this is not India’s largest English language newspaper, it is actually the world’s largest. Just thought I’d throw that in there.
yeah, that’s what i wrote.
I had to re-read the article to get that point.
“India’s largest English-language newspaper, the Times of India”
is disingenuous.
“The world’s largest daily English-language newspaper, the Times of India”
is more on point.
I’m not sure disingenuous means what you think it means.
Does it really matter? The point is Yahoo has advertised in all major Indian newspapers and they’re hoping it will revive their fortunes =D
I don’t think Arrington’s saying it that way was an unintentional mistake. I think the gist of the matter is, Times of India is an INDIAN paper targeting INDIAN readership. As such, it is more useful to compare it to other Indian papers.
Whether it’s circulation is bigger than the NY Times or other international papers is not relevant, as the latter do not specifically target Indians. Think about it, though the New York Times can sell significant numbers of papers in India as well as California, the Times of India cannot sell the same volume in the California because of it’s local Indian content.
Besides… oh, nevermind, I’d better shut up while I’m ahead.
LMAO. The New York Times wouldn’t sell any more in India than the Times of India would sell in California. NYT is America dependent too. If you didn’t realize Times of India covers world events too.
ROFL…good job…
It is in every major English Daily in India. Yahoo is targeting the young Indians (16 to 35 age bracket) with this kind of initiative.
With 3G round the corner in India, Yahoo has already started to woo the cell phone users who will be using 3G to get seamless internet experience on the go.
Add livemint (http://epaper.livemint.com/) to the list
Same ad is also in Hindustan Times (http://epaper.h...dustantimes.com) , 2nd largest english newspaper of India.
I think this is a smart move by Yahoo.. er Microsoft.. but having been to India several times I can say that print ads like this are still very, very effective there while they may be dying here.
Actually, I feel this is marketing money well-spent! People do read the newspapers there … prolly the next move by Yahoo would be to get a Bollywood/Cricket star to endorse Y! on the front pages!
100 million bux still won’t change that this is iGoogle 4 years too late.
They also got the entire back page of The Hindu. As The Hindu doesn’t compromise its “integrity” by posting a full front page ad!!
Well said Tina.
Full page front ads look lame. I need something encouraging on the front page and not an announcement that the Internet is under my management.
The Hindu did it right. BTW Yahoo can’t ignore The Hindu in adverts
They should also add at the end -
“Thank you! Come again!”
Yahoo mail is a horrible monstrosity from 1998.
The small copy reads “A homepage that lets you add whatever you love, an inbox that knows what you like (and don’t) and the freedom to access it from your mobile. Say hello to the new Yahoo! Take charge today at http://www.yahoo.inâ€
haha!!!..Still they cant compete or compare with google.Doesn’t matter of this kind of dance by yahoo…
The internet is under new management? Does it mean India is now in control of the web;? The new market for yahoo.
Do you yahoo? Or how was that ad called in the end 90s. Nope.
Nice to see an Internet company taking help of the conventional print media to improve its fortunes!!!
wonder what al gore thinks about the new management of the internet..
If am the new manager of Yahoo, well thats what the AD says, Carol your FIRED!!! and now I need to make myself the CEO and get each of you to serve on the board.
Does Yahoo ever stop spending money on crappy ad campaigns? At least this isn’t a continuation of the completely nonsensical and ineffective ‘Start Wearing Purple’ crap. What a joke.
Indians stealing americans’ jobs? Thats the most idiotic thing making someone proud of one’s nation. Oh yes, all the taxi drivers in US u are talking of. I fail to understand why we indians (yes I am an indian) fail to realise how backward we are.
And when every one in seven is an indian, and a newspaper costs 5 cents in india, its pity to see that phrase “most selling newspaper – TOI”/ a bike costs a grand “most selling bike in the world – splendor”.
Talk of living conditions in India – worse than how chickens are reared in farms. Pollution everywhere, corruption everywhere. And look at the air these b*stards carry when they speak.
Never do a piece of productive work, but be the first to blow ur trumpet – @ssh*les!
what the hell man…can’t you say, we are doing our best despite of our fanatically charged reproductive organs which spills like ripe beans nurtured by the heat, and idotic cynic citizens who think being an indian is like doing a job in freaking medieval iron ore mines and crying about it on a upscale intelligent blog(yo! arrington) on a 600$ laptop/pc while the ……
o wat the hell…u know the drill.
chillax
C’mon, everybody knows you are not Indian..
wow…. i can pass as a non-Indian by effect of writing confusing posts …that’s techcrunchical (hey that’s ma nu word)! … i had a hell of a time hiding it while aggressively launching hate attacks.,….hmmm
@adnaan
The reply was to Indiasucks.
I think Adnaan Badr and the “indiasucks” guy are real Indians. I can tell by the vocabulary he uses– lots of Brittish words such as “splendor” and “realise.” I can also tell by how he feels about corruption. I lived in Mumbai for 3 months back in the 90’s and I know that that’s how Indians talk.
oooo ! too hard to comprehend, can you dumb down it a little bit to our “primitive” standards !
“dumb it down..” LOL
Hey David, did you feel like you were Tarzan when you were in India…. you know, a civilized white surrounded by brownies?
hahaha brownies….
haha dude, seems like you and yer friends are a bunch of Taxi drivers in India leading f**ked up lives. go get life !
hate attack…here it comes……naah..fuhget it ..yu own d fkin taxi…
He’s surely an Indian
His points are absolutely correct with deep analysis and not at all illogical like that of any non-Indian…
But whoever you are…you have mistaken dude…
you have written IndiaSucks, and it should be Indians Suck
“He sure is indian” —-> is he ?
oh, what database do you use sir, GeoIP ??
@ssh*le !
once upon a time they said…” he is a non-american”
now they say….” he is a non-indian”
“we will pull the chair below you”….say when a first world company starts spending millions on an ad campaign in a third world country where the general public mostly copies the western products(web-based) without so much a look at an ad. this is a game changing event. mark it. tweet it. etch it in granite and remember when i say ” i said so dude/dudette”
Yahoo ads are all over indian TV channels, specially on cricket matches as Indians are mad for cricket
For those who came in late ! ….As per ComScore, Yahoo! already reaches over 72.3% of India internet users. The ad seems to be trying to reinforce its brand position……..not sure if smart ( I know everything) people on the chain know it…..i love the way Yahoo! reinforces its brand with its existing and new users…
agreed.
TOI has circulation of 13.3 million and not 3.14M
And Google just bought front-page ad on Yahoo India for 10% of the amount Y! spent on advertising @ newspapers.
How much chedder do you think Yahoo paid for that janky photo?
I run a company in India with everybody online and they are all bailing out of Yahoo and using gmail and other stuff like skype. Don’t let this ad fool you into thinking Yahoo isn’t dying in that market as well.
whoz that girl ?
I think Is a poor design, the color is so bright that the only thing you can see is the girl & the word yours, Or maybe the subliminal message is if you use Yahoo you get the girl,
Jeez,
Jeez,
How does a headline about a newspaper ad in India becomes a discussion about Indians? I am sure there are plenty Indians that are well educated even by Western standards and then there are who are barely literate and there are plenty illiterates as well. India is work in progress and the dichotomy of education, wealth and living standards reflects that. While we have achieved a lot in terms of education and science there is still a long way to go. On one hand we have moon missions but on the same we have the highest infant mortality rate. While we have people in 10 ten Forbes richest person list and most number of billionaires created for last 2 years we also have a big chunk of population that can barely eat 2 square meals day. Just like any other place we have smart people and dumb people. Fractions of 1.2 billion tend to be big chunks. So numbers do seem big when someone says 150 million people go hungry every day in India. While not ideal it is still an improvement over 350 million a decade ago.
To the point of the article, the punchlines may need to be fine tuned to the populace compnies are trying to attract and sometimes western compnies’ messages are lost in translation.
I agree. “Under new management” is not a catchy, well-known phrase to Indians living in India.
Agreed…. being 2nd most populated country we do have a large no of engineers, doctors and guys with exceptionally high I.Q. but what matters is what fraction? We have a large number of very intelligent well educated Indians doing well everywhere but we also have a larger no of Indians living in misery and below poverty line.
I take pride in my culture but not my people
I think we have come a long way, just 60 years since independence. We need more time.
As for the Ad…. it’s just too bright for me. I need my yellow light blocking shades
don’t fall for it east asains. this ad is crap and this new yahoo Y!ou campaign is worse than the crap that comes out of your arse. read the original post arrington wrote and the comments. yahoo is fooling nobody.
ohhh btw I think Yahoo is in some competition
http://www.thin...Orkut_3429.html
Well dont know about the ad but if i wanna run my internet add campaign then surely for few days i’ll buy the Yahoo homepage for displaying adds. b’coz surly this print advertise will create new hits on yahoo website and surly advertise will perform well to on yahoo home page.. it’s like yahoo spending money for their own campaign and indirectly i’ll get some of the traffic too..
dont know why – but i like that ad man !!
Indian internet is prerogative of handful english literates in India (80 M). The so called largest english daily ‘Times of India’ is only 5th largest after vernacular dailies. Refer IRS 2009 R1 circulation figures – Dainik Jagaran reaches 54 M vs TOI 13M. Huge vernacular market is the key to penetrate into this market – which unfortunately all the Indian internet players have failed to tap.
I would not at all surprised if this ad never finds a place in major hindi or other vernacular papers in India.
Data sources : Trendsspotting Handbook of Online India http://www.tren...om/blog/?p=1488
Anyway I think the girl in the picture is too white not represent regular Indians I think there is subconscious in all of us we all admire the white people and want to be like them for me I’m happy to be Indian I just so humiliate the white man take my girlfriend its not isolate incidence our whole generation of Indian girls they all want to have white man boyfriends and husband.
Yahoo! is also advertising over the TV with their half minute commercials “It’s Y!ou”. I’ve been noticing this ad on more and more channels since yesterday.
That’s a whole lot of mud-slinging folks!
It’s just another ad like a million others, only this time it’s an internet company in an Indian English-daily. Can’t believe a simple blog post from Arrington with only a compilation of plain facts has triggered so many racist comments. TechCrunch is the last place one would expect this.
I don’t see if this ad in the TOI is techcrunch worthy… because techcrunch does not get how India works… For any online portal other than Google, you need traditional advertising to give that great push..
and they have been trying hard with cool cyclopse (which people normally don’t gets) Ad and even these full front page ads in leading Indian daily’s.
You shudn’t look at it as Yahoo buying ad space on the largest Indian daily but, Yahoo accepting Indian realities and adopting its marketing strategy accordingly…
That girl in the picture is a symbol of India’s wealthy and educated elite; it represents the non-sectarian community of India’s classes that have found freedom in not being bound to any religious norms
It further represents the kind of India Indian love, cherish; one the world would love to see.
That’s the reason Yahoo! chose to advertise in such a widely circulated publication
How can she be a symbol of Indias anything when she don’t even look Indian she look like she Spainish European or Italian European if she a real Indian she only 50% or 33% Indian what the other percent it must be white maybe we can say shes a symbol of Eropean infiltration into the Indian gene pool.
Mutimba is saying the girl represents the non-sectarian, liberated class because she doesn’t have the big dot painted onto the middle of her forehead. See, I told you I know India/Indians.
Us Americans know more about India than you Indians!
Too many chiefs in here and not enough Indians!