What's Happening at Yahoo!?

By The Myers Report Archives
Cover image for  article: What's Happening at Yahoo!?

Exclusive Interview With Yahoo!'s Greg Coleman

News: Yahoo! yesterday announced the $300 million acquisition of Blue Lithium, the fifth largest online advertising network.

The departure of Yahoo!EVP Greg Colemanrepresents the end of an era for a company that has been consistently rated among the top performers in the annual Myers Survey of Advertising Executives on Online Sales Organization Performance.

In this year's Myers Survey, distributed this week to subscribers, Yahoo! Search and Yahoo! rank third and fourth among the 21 portals, search engines and e-commerce sales organizations evaluated in the study (The full study, conducted in June, includes 125 sales organizations.) Last year, Yahoo! and Yahoo! Search were tied for third rank, and in 2005 Yahoo! was ranked first among portals and search engine companies. This year, Google ranked first and CNET second.

For Madison Avenue executives wondering "who's in charge" at Yahoo! with the organization's loss of its three most visible ad sales executives in the past three months, Coleman offered assurances in an exclusive conversation with Jack Myers Media Business Report. Coleman's departure was announced last week although he will stay on through February as an advisor. VeteranWenda Millard'sdeparture for Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia was marked with controversy and Jerry Shereshewsky left to become president of start-up Grandparents.com, which launches later this month. The departures follow the resignation of Yahoo! president Terry Semel in June. Yahoo! has been beset by perceptions of being strategically out-of-sync with the ad community since hiring -- and then firing -- former ABC programming chief Lloyd Braun. Coleman says recent moves to integrate display ad and search sales are intended to once again advance Yahoo!'s leadership vision and customer-centric approach, and accelerate ad revenue increases.

The decision to integrate display and search sales, which Coleman counts among his key priorities, precipitated Millard's departure and led to the elevation of senior search sales executive David Karnstedt to day-to-day authority over all sales management. Just last month, Karnstedt advised Jack Myers Media Business Report that Coleman could be expected to play a significantly more active and visible role in the Madison Avenue ad community. Karnstedt, who was reporting to Coleman as was Millard, will now report to Hilary Schneider, who joined the company last September as a key lieutenant to president Sue Decker. Previously she was CEO of Knight Ridder Digital and publisher of Red Herring.

Coleman intends to spend the next six months actively building bridges for the new team with Madison Avenue and to "work on integration to get it off to the best start. Our customers agree integration of the sales teams is the right thing to do," Coleman stresses. His decision to leave, he says, came about after working closely on plans and strategies with Decker for the past three months. "The decision was made for Hilary to run the business and I felt it was the best time for me to leave."

Karnstedt, while respected for his search industry experience, was not well known to the digital or traditional ad communities beyond search marketing. Neither Decker nor Schneider have hands-on experience in the ad business and are expected to rely heavily on VP Beth Lawrence and Jackie Kelley, who is well-respected from her years as the senior sales executive at USA Today. Kelley now heads global strategy for Yahoo!, reporting to Schneider, and Lawrence reports to Karnstedt. However, as online video advertising gains increased momentum for brand advertisers', and as search revenues flatten, Yahoo! will also require a "voice" in the ad community with video experience.

"In the future, TV network buyers and sellers will need to understand search and 360 solutions focused on performance, branding and sponsorship," says Coleman. "Through osmosis, there will be convergence." Coleman stressed the Yahoo! regional sales executives "are a heavyweight group of talented executives," and that Decker, Schneider and Karnstedt would be actively visiting agencies and advertisers during the next several months.

Millard was, arguably, the online industry's senior statesman and Coleman, who joined Yahoo! in April 2001, had relinquished day-to-day domestic advertising sales and marketing activities but remained well-known and respected among senior industry leaders. Coleman lists his major accomplishment since joining Yahoo! from Readers Digest Magazines, where he was president, as "hiring the most significant and successful sales team in any medium and growing sales from $500 million to $6 billion."

But, he adds, "relationships are the greatest accomplishment, and the number of people reaching out to me from both inside and outside the company is overwhelming." Coleman will be actively involved at Yahoo!, reporting to Decker, through February and then hopes to take a short time off before his next challenge. He will continue to make his home in Los Gatos, California his primary residence, although he maintains an apartment in New York. "I've been working non-stop for 29 years," he laughs, "and I'm looking forward to a chance to take a deep breath. I'm excited for the next adventure after I wrap up my work with this team I love."

Coleman's priorities during the transition period, he advises, will be to "work with Sue, Hilary, David and Jerry (Yang) to help cement relationships with the ad community, assure that the integration model sets in, and be sure our off-network partnerships with Comcast, AT&T, eBay and others have appropriate focus."

According to the Myers survey, 92 percent of advertisers who use online media include Yahoo! on their 2007 schedules, up from 83 percent in 2006, ranking first among all 125 sites measured. Among these executives, 50 percent rate the overall value of their relationship with Yahoo! as "excellent" or "very good," compared to 45 percent last year. However, 43 percent of the respondents rated Yahoo! sales reps as "excellent" or "very good" for being "responsive to needs and interests," declining from 51 percent in 2006.

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