Golden or Yellow?
Yellow or golden? They’re both pretty much the same to me, but when it comes to brands competing in one and the same branch, the matter is more of a “Coca-Cola or Pepsi?” kind. During the last two years quite many players entered the business directories and guides field. At present the leader in the market are Yellow pages and Golden pages, as the latter are by default placed in a slight image shadow. I’ve known the first ones’ representative for years and he’s among the few friends of mine who like to work at night like me. Several months ago we chatted about the ability to lead or to follow the way. An infinite philosophic theme that you can dwell upon for hours over a nice coffee and aromatic tobacco with utmost pleasure. The history of telephone directories with yellow pages started at the time of the most renowned detective of all times and will soon celebrate its 130th jubilee. Yes, my thought brought me right there, to the recesses of the so called ME2 brands, to my former experience with such cases and positioning based on traditions. “Imitate or Innovate?” is one of my favourite cliches in marketing, which I decided to clean from the dust for this project and add some character to this specific search in the yellow-golden guides.
Here’s how the same-year-born Yellow pages and Sherlock Holmes were joined together on one cover, and friends from Ashley & Holmes supported the concept in giving it a regional weight. The main communication channel and information carrier in this case are the directories themselves, and the big towns’ monuments, in which they are distributed, added to it the weight and tradition that are usually lost in the leading position competition.
I am convinced that within 5 years this race and business will be mainly online and paper will be substituted with powerful internet portals and cutting edge user experience.
- Project credits
- Advertising Agency: Ashley & Holmes
- Creative Direction: Kiril Zlatkov
- Art Direction: Miglena Papazova
- Brand Management: Stefan Popadiin
- Concept: Radoslav Minchev
- Client: Yellow Pages Bulgaria
SuperNova wrote:
October 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pmI would like to add even more questions, but than I would need to post their answers what would be a gift for some people that just don’t deserve it
…and the list in reality is very looong and heavy!
Instead I would like to post a link to this very short presentation and this quote, in fact it is a rumour from the London stock exchange “Yellow Pages to Be Taken Over by Google? Shares rise on the speculation Google is moving to be the one thing we wake up in the morning to check our dreams with, as for what they mean and so on, the place to see what breakfast has less calories and which route to work is the shortest and, thanks to Street View, less jammed. With the speculations about it taking over Yell Croup Plc, the publisher of the United Kingdom’s Yellow Pages phone books, it seems to me like making a move to be the one thing on our mind when thinking about contacting somebody. “The rumor that Google may bid for Yell has been around before, and I’m not surprised to hear it has surfaced again”, Jimmy Yates, a London-based trader at CMC Markets, said. “Yell has lost almost half its value in the last 11 months and certainly looks more attractive now as a takeover candidate”, he continued. As a result of these speculations, Yell rose as much as 4.4 percent, valuing the company at 2.6 billion pounds or 5.1 billion dollars, as its stock climbed 5.50 pence (1.7 percent) to 331.25 pence on Friday at 8:37 A.M., in London. Rumors spread, among others, by “The Independent” newspaper in the U.K. contained inside information like the fact that a 500 pence-per-share bid was made by Google, but this has not been confirmed by the Mountain View based company or by Yell.According to Bloomberg.com’s Simon Thiel, Yellow Book, the largest independent yellow pages publisher in the U.S., accounts for about half of Yell’s sales. And the takeover rumors are very interesting exactly because Yell, who has spun off from the former phone monopoly BT Group Plc in 2001, is actually competing with phone companies, such as AT&T, and search engines, such as (you’ve guessed it!) Google. Whether the deal will go through we’ll find out soon enough, but in the meantime think about having the Yellow Pages as a Google option and Skype as a built-in feature for the Google phone, as was rumored in November last year. How does it sound?”
I think this says it all! The list of questions that SHOULD be addressed and unfortunately is not addressed by many is very long…just because those many seem to work against each other, the same one that divide things to Golden and Yellow, the same ones that try to overshadow while they have to follow, and the same ones that have to lead when are hiding in the shadow. But that is normal, this is the corporate culture of the last century fading into this one. A very nice saying on this one: “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” And in this case the “unreasonable man” should be the golden filthy reach (maybe not any more) American fund, but instead decides to be the reasonable is just pissing me of, but again this is normal behaviour.
I am not convinced that within 5 years this race and business will be mainly online and paper will be substituted with powerful internet portals and cutting edge user experience. I am not convinced at all, that even a part of this shall happen. Yellow Pages business is a great industry and although it is in its sunset, it could rise twice as big and shining the next morning. The potential is immense with respect to Google or Yahoo for example. The opportunities are multi-billion. The user experience is ever more with family values
Although not sharing my believes on this topics with precise examples, I would like to thank for all the support of friends and colleagues, web buddies and mainly open people that have given their insights and energy to nurture this believes with optimism and constructive criticism. Cheers to you all!
Marketology blog by Radoslav Minchev » Blog Archive » ME2 wrote:
December 1st, 2008 at 2:22 pm[...] point of view taught me many subtleties, part of which I’m going to share in these lines. A previous article reminded me of that matter related to the demolition of a ME2 brand platform and the building of a [...]