Yahoo Wants To Copyright Its New Slogan – But Why?

Posted by Dale Buss on April 9, 2010 02:24 PM

As the cornerstone of a new brand identity, can we all agree that Yahoo’s “It’s You” campaign hasn’t exactly turned the world upside down since it was launched last fall, despite the apparent expenditure of much of the $100 million budgeted for it?

Which raises another issue. Yahoo last week filed for a trademark on the “It’s You” expression. The question: Why bother?

It’s not as if this branding campaign has been lighting the world on fire. Yahoo’s continuing problem as a brand nowadays actually stems from its history as one of the original

brands spawned by the internet. During the 1990's, just being an internet brand was brand enough. There was America Online, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo (usually with the “!” back then) and a few grocery-delivery sites. Google hadn’t even really come on strong yet.

But over the years, Yahoo has remained the epitome of a generic internet brand while almost all of the other surviving major early internet brands have gone on to stand for more distinctive things. Yahoo enables users to do – well, practically everything. So the brand stands for nothing in particular.

That’s why Yahoo CEO Carole Bartz triggered the “It’s You” marketing campaign in September: The company wanted to speak directly to individuals to make the message more about them than about Yahoo, and to show users how they can personalize the Yahoo experience.

Apparently, Yahoo brass believe the campaign must be working if they bothered seeking trademark protection for the slogan. But Nike caused more excitement this week with one lame commercial featuring Tiger Woods than Yahoo has created over the last nine months with “It’s You."

Does Yahoo know something we don’t – or vice versa?

More about: Tech, Yahoo, America Online, Amazon, eBay, Nike, Google

Gunter Soydanbay says:

For a moment, I thought the picture was real. Anyway, Unlike the other successful early internet brands, Yahoo!'s strategy had changed drastically. (from a search engine to a content provider). And I believe that miscalculated directional change left Yahoo! standing for nothing.
Going forward, they can't claim the search engine market again (too strong competitor), they can't stand for content (too many providers). They are not big in social media. Their fantasy games, finance and sports mail services seem to be still relevant, but these are not big enough markets. Maybe they can morph into an interactive newspaper of some sort.

I am curious to see what they will do.
Gunter Soydanbay
www.soydanbay.com

April 9, 2010 06:05 PM #

online branding says:

I think Yahoo was more of a directory that also had a search engine.

And like many branding campaigns, they came out of the gate strong but failed to keep the momentum.

The concept of It's You fits well with Yahoo's brand. They have a number of sections like shine and buzz that are interesting, and if anything, they might be poised to be a premier publisher. They'd probably benefit from taking a good look at Huff Post and create some real value instead of trying to mirror digg as an aggregator in some cases.

I just can't see why they would want to trademark "It's You". Someone at Yahoo HQ is drinking the koolaid and thinks this will be the next "Just do it"?

If I had a say (are you listening Yahoo?) I would propose they focus on being a portal.

April 10, 2010 03:41 PM #

Krista Robertson says:

I'm not sure Yahoo will get much from protecting the slogan. Generally trademark slogans help identify the brand and make it clear to whom one refers. I don't know anyone who has any idea that Yahoo's using "It's You" for anything, much less identifies the phrase with the company.

Separately, I am disappointed by the misleading title of this article. The article gives a clear discussion of the trademark issue Yahoo is attempting to resolve by registering the slogan "It's You," but the title of the article says "copyright"? These are two separate intellectual property issues and aren't interchangeable.

April 14, 2010 02:01 PM #