Posted by Jyotika Malhotra, Marketing & Communications Consultant & AIMS Blog Correspondent
Yahoo! It’s the weekend…but there’s time to squeeze in one last post before the week ends. Fittingly, it’s a conversation I had with Kerry Munro, General Manager, Yahoo! Canada (an AIMS Sponsor) for our 2007 Resolutions series. Here it is, despite planes, trains, automobiles and broken tape recorders.
Jyotika Malhotra: I wanted to get a state of the nation, of sorts, to find out what key marketers have on their minds and their agendas for 2007. What are three professional resolutions or to dos that you have on your list for this year?
Kerry Munro: We want to keep our business really simple. We have three anchors for Yahoo! Canada in 2007.
1. Focus on consumers. Expand Yahoo! Canada as the destination of choice for Canadians - improve the capabilities of the site, grow our search and media properties and add new components from Yahoo! Global. There is a lot of stuff on Yahoo! Worldwide that we can extend to the Canadian multicultural audience. Also, to continue with user interaction and our commitment to social media and social sites.
2. On the advertising and publishing side, enhance support. We are one of the fastest growing media businesses in the country. Our long-term goal is to look at how the web plays into marketing strategy – educating our clients, etc. For example 70% of 12-24-year olds are online from 4:00 - 9:30 pm. We didn’t have that kind of information as marketers back then. Having been on the business side, I would have been a better marketer, quite frankly, if I had the data that we do now.
3. Giving back. We spent last year focused on the advertiser and consumer side and we, of course, want to build both as the best businesses in Canada, but how do we also give something back to the community? In 2006, it was more at the individual level in terms of charitable donations and so forth. In 2007 for example, we, as a collective business unit, will be at the food bank after the holidays to help replenish supplies after the big drive. We are also looking to introduce that sense of community online.
JM: What are you working on for 2007 that you can talk about?
KM: There are lots of things that we are working on which I can’t tip my hat to at the moment. However, launching now is our global search platform, code named Panama – Yahoo! Search Marketing. We already have clients on it now, but the official announcement will be out [later] in January.
[Editor’s Note: Just read about the release date today in the Media in Canada newsletter.]
JM: What would you do differently from 2006?
KM: In hind sight, you always look back and say that you would have liked to have worked smarter and faster. I think that stands out. The other thing is that I’d like to step back and celebrate the successes. Because of the nature of the business we are in – the sheer growth of the Internet – we are on to the next thing after a [won] deal. We need to take more time to celebrate the successes – it’s about enjoying the journey.
JM: You’ve talked about Yahoo! Canada’s goals for 2007, what are some of your own in terms of leadership and the business, in general?
KM: The pace of [our] growth is incredible. I’ve been here for one and a half years and in the early days, I could spend more time with people and get their ideas on ways to expand and grow our business – it was more of a free flow. Now that we’ve grown so much, the opportunity to sit down with folks has diminished. It’s just a function of our growth but I’d like to get back to some of those sessions of creativity.
I’d also like to continue to expand the Canadian business – I’m a born and bred Canadian and I really believe in what we are doing here. We are the fastest or one of the fastest growing businesses in Yahoo! Worldwide.
JM: In terms of the industry, what are you most excited about or looking forward to in 2007?
KM: I am looking forward to the potential – and I also see it as the most disappointing at the same time. It’s the misunderstanding or lack of understanding of the power of the Internet. We want to move [clients] away from the last-minute ad buy. The reality today is that my 11-year old daughter is on the Internet, watching TV, IM-ing and probably text messaging on her cell phone all at the same time. No one medium overweighs everything. We want to have a focused and integrated approach – understanding the web is like completing the puzzle [for marketers]. If I look forward, there is a big opportunity to see the light bulb go on (and I don’t mean that in a negative way, at all) as people understand the power of the web.
Speaking of light bulbs, have an idea or comment you’d like to share? Add it below.
We’ll be wrapping up this series next week, so if you’d still like to submit your 2007 resolutions, send them to me by Monday January 22 and I’ll share them with the AIMS community.
Hi, thank you for this video. It has just acted as a conformation to me.
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