Yahoo! Eyeballs Consumers and Advertisers in Southeast Asia

Photo taken before my final interview

Adobo Magazine reports on how Yahoo! is moving into the minds of Southeast Asian advertisers.  Check out the excerpt below:

Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines are Key Targets
By: Aye Ubaldo

By serving locally relevant content to Asians as early as 1995, and planting its logo on seven regional shores, Yahoo! has become No. 1 in Internet use in Asia.

Now, it wants to be first in the minds of Southeast Asian advertisers, by offering them integration and direct links to consumers’ personal preferences.

So last April, Yahoo! gathered the region’s media for an unprecedented “eyeball” and unveiled Yahoo! Sponsored Search in Singapore.

Launched as Panama in the United States in 2006, Sponsored Search is a form of search engine marketing that enables advertisers to place ads that appear in search results. Through display advertising, marketers can build their brand, connect with more customers, allow transactions and gain info through personalized messages directly to interested consumers. The service is a keyword-based “pay per click” or “sponsored result” Internet advertising service.

To help advertisers access online consumers—53 million in SE Asia and 500 million worldwide—Yahoo! collaborated with 19 major mobile service providers in Asia, including Globe Telecoms. The result is a host of features that can bring brands and consumers together on Yahoo!

Web Search, a key starting point for consumers to locate, use, share and expand knowledge online, but much more target-specific. A typical search for designer goods on other engines may feature ads for designer sites in New York and Paris. On Web Search, the Philippine consumer is offered ads from online merchants in Manila and Makati.

Social Search, through Yahoo! Answers, the largest knowledge-sharing community on the web with more than 90 million users worldwide.

Mobile Search, through oneSearch™, which allows users access to specific search results on their cellphones.

Studies show that 15 to 18 percent of target audience goes online. Yet, currently, only three to four percent of total advertising budgets goes to online advertising. Yahoo! hopes its strategy will finally convince Internet-shy advertisers—like those in the Philippines—to think of Yahoo! as a must-buy. More advertisers, more online shoppers.

In Sponsored Search, advertising rates are determined at cost per click, and the advertiser can control his budget and the frequency of his placement. Yahoo!’s portal allows a wide range of metrics where online marketing reach and effectiveness can be measured. Accurate up-to-the-minute information allows the advertiser to closely monitor their placements and the corresponding hits so they can directly assess their advertising efforts, and can easily rectify or revise as necessary. Moreover, because the Internet has no concept of primetime, even when the advertiser does not get any clicks, the ad is still shown online.

However, Yahoo! must hurdle a few challenges. One is the cost of rights ownership investments, which threatens to delay the company’s expansion in the region. Second is the logistical nightmare of global integration.

Third is the increasing dependence of Southeast Asians on their mobile phones. While more people still go online through PC/laptop rather than through mobile phones, trends indicate an eventual reversal. Online advertising, though not new, is only recently being acknowledged and may seem complex to advertisers.

In the meantime, Yahoo! is banking on Sponsored Search, with its integration of display, search and mobile crossover functionalities, to stem the tide.

“Fifty-three million come to Yahoo!” says Yahoo! SE Asia Managing Director Ken Mandel. “Advertisers come not for the number alone, but the number of engagements. We are here to provide the most relevant content and services to help simplify lives.”