Yahoo counting on $100 million marketing campaign to get it ‘back to where we ought to be’

On the Call: Yahoo CFO Tim Morse

Mired in slump that has disillusioned its employees and stockholders, Yahoo Inc. last month launched a $100 million marketing campaign to promote its Internet services as an indispensable part of people’s lives.

Yahoo told investors Tuesday that it had already spent about $18 million on the ad blitz, which will blanket most media in the United States and nine other countries through the end of year.

Tim Morse, Yahoo’s chief financial officer, explained the rationale for spending so much money while the Sunnyvale, Calif. company has been laying off workers and tightening its belt in other areas to offset a steady decline in revenue. He was subbing for Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz, who bowed out of Tuesday’s conference call because of an unspecified illness that Morse described as “nothing serious.”

QUESTION: Could you give us a better sense of what the thinking was behind the marketing campaign?

REPSONSE: We have certainly over the last few years underspent on the brand and there’s a very high correlation between brand value and the rank of brands and how much you spend on them. And I think we are just getting back to where we ought to be in this regard. … It’s something we are using not only as an external catalyst but as an internal catalyst too. It really does define our identity and where we are going to go. … As we roll through and go into the future, it will become more product-focused and it will evolve with the company.