Yahoo! zooms in on surfers with SmartAds


3 Jul 2007

In light of Yahoo!’s recent corporate reshuffling, with the display and search advertising sectors merged under one division, it is not surprising that the internet giant has come along with a brand new online advertising strategy.

Although not quite on the same level as the futuristic advertising seen in Minority Report, where Tom Cruise’s retina scan produced tailored recommendations, Yahoo’s new SmartAds is a platform for highly personalised online advertising.

Combining consumer research and new technology, Yahoo! SmartAds claims to take advertisers’ content and reformat it into “highly-customized and relevant display ads”.

Todd Teresi, Yahoo!’s senior vice president of display marketplaces said that SmartAds gives marketers “the ability to deliver customized marketing messages to consumers, and still engage very large audiences with their brand.”

Yahoo! has combined all of its services to fully use its advertisers information to maximum benefit for a web surfer in real time.

If, for example, a surfer is browsing through sports cars on Yahoo! Autos, and has Dublin selected as their default location on Yahoo! Weather, the SmartAds platform would pull in this information. It would then create an ad in real time promoting a sports car from a specific manufacturer, with information on local dealerships, along with, perhaps, insurance providers and lease rates.

“Yahoo!’s SmartAds is the breakthrough marriage of brand and direct marketing that advertisers have been waiting for,” said David Kenny, chairman of ad agency Digitas and Publicis Groupe Digital.

“By combining its huge audience, dynamic ad creation capabilities and deep knowledge of user interests, Yahoo! has developed a true innovation that will benefit agencies and its clients, especially companies with a large number of offers to present to many audience segments.”

By Marie Boran