CREATION: Yahoo marketing to target corporations

Faced with a softening online advertising marketing, Yahoo is diversifying its marketing to target corporate customers. The drive to pump up revenue has led the Internet giant to launch Plan C, a campaign to pull in business from large corporations. Yahoo has offered to build corporate portals, conduct realtime conferences over the Internet and other business-related services for companies. Despite strong growth, Yahoo has not been immune to the dotcom downturn. It earlier warned that 2001 earnings would be lower than predicted. Like many dotcoms, Yahoo's problems stem from its business model, which is largely dependent on online advertising. With the dotcom casualty list mounting and marketing budgets being slashed, Yahoo has seen its advertising revenue dry up. The company's plan B - to attract advertising from traditional companies - didn't quite take shape. Even the portal's online mall, which lists a growing number of merchants, has yet to pay off, prompting the latest drive to target corporations, with the launch of a business-to-business marketplace. Yahoo senior manager of international marketing, Gen Shibayama, told CReATION on a recent visit to Hong Kong that the company was optimistic the new business services would help it gain a share of the growing B2B market. The Gartner Group has predicted that the B2B market would be worth USdollars 7.3 trillion annually by 2004. "The (online advertising) situation in Asia is much better than the US. We have already launched these campaigns for corporate users in Taiwan. We also worked with Ming Pao in Hong Kong to help them with a live webcast," said Mr Shibayama. "We don't foresee any consumer campaigns in the near future because our target is more for corporate at this time." Yahoo is also beginning to charge a listing fee for its auction site and is looking at other ways to earn revenue from its 55 million users. Although Yahoo is arguably the best known portal brand on the Web, its strategy to target companies presents perils of its own. As Mr Shibayama acknowledged, the portal to business market has become increasingly crowded, while spending on IT is expected to fall this year. Targeting corporate users will also require Yahoo to extend its consumer brand to entice corporate decision makers. He said Yahoo would make further advances into Asia, following its acquisition of Kimo.com. NetValue data shows that Yahoo already operates the top Web properties in three Asian markets. Its sites drew the most unique home Internet users in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan during December, while Kimo.com, which Yahoo acquired in November, placed first in Taiwan, with Yahoo in third. The acquisition of Kimo.com, according to Merrill Lynch US Internet analyst Henry Blodget, was made to "bolster Yahoo's position in Taiwan", and ultimately mainland China.

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