“Originally, it was Jerry’s Guide to the World Wide Web, but we settled on Yahoo!,” says Yang. “It is a pretty recognizable brand name.” Despite Filo’s admission that he was “not crazy about the name at first,” he now concedes that they made the right choice. “It grew on me,” says Filo, who is now grateful they selected a name that is “so memorable and that conveys the sense of fun involved in all this, the sense of adventure. This is what really distinguishes our site.”
The company’s goofy but memorable name is one of its strongest advantages over its competitors, whose names get lost by the wayside. “It is a place for adventures,” says Filo. “A place to discover things.” And, its name perfectly conveys those sentiments.
Yahoo! was one of the first Internet companies to extend its name into a brand, something which Filo and Yang made a conscious decision to do. First, they chose to stay away from some of the more well-known high-tech advertising agencies. Instead, they went with a smaller company who understood Yahoo!’s needs to grow past its reputation as an Internet search company.
The ad agency created a series of television commercials called “Gone Fishing,” whereby an old fisherman would dip into Yahoo! for fishing tips and come up with one huge fish after another. The ad accurately conveyed the idea behind Yahoo! as a search company, but it stayed away from anything too techie. Yahoo! was on its way from being an Internet company to a comprehensive new-media company with a broad appeal.
The “Gone Fishing” television ads had drained Yahoo!’s budget, but the company’s momentum was rising. Soon, they were followed with posters on construction sites, promotions at major concerts, and even partnerships with Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. Yang and Filo were putting their logo everywhere they could think of. Yahoo!’s strategy was working. By 1998, its earnings were $203.3 million, up from $70.5 million the year before.
But Yang and Filo were not only proving their adeptness in selling themselves. They were also demonstrating their skills when it came to bringing on board other companies to advertise on Yahoo! Most of that $203.3 million revenue was coming from short-term contract banner advertisements. The company soon branched out into sponsorships, contracts that lasted between three months to two years. E-commerce also made up roughly 25 percent of the company’s revenues.
“Advertising on the internet is still very much in the beginning stages,” says Yang. “I think there are a lot of things happening that are making it better for both advertisers and consumers.” One of those things was that technology was improving, allowing for ads that were more visually appealing and relevant to users.
“Our purpose/goal is the same, to keep the internet free to the users and make the business part work by finding sponsors and advertisers who want to reach our audience,” says Yang. “I think it is one of the keys to keep improving the usefulness of the web and make sure that as many people as possible can use it and derive value from it.”
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