It seems that Yahoo’s “30 days of change” campaign wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Before unveiling its redesigned new logo last week, Yahoo ran a (fake) competition that introduced a new logo every day for 30 days and asked people to tell them which one was the best, before finally settling on one that wasn’t even in the competition.
Although the bake-off was ultimately of no real consequence, it did do what it set out to, which is to raise consciousness of Yahoo’s brand, especially in a positive light.
Yahoo’s brand image was measured by YouGov’s Brand Index, which tracks brand perceptions over time by asking respondents: “If you’ve heard anything about the brand in the last two weeks, through advertising, news or word of mouth, was it positive or negative?” The responses are scored and charted over time to create a performance graph of the brand’s image.
The Yahoo brand reached its lowest point (along with other tech companies) around the time that it was revealed that tech companies had worked with the NSA to provide information on their users. Yahoo’s recovery started soon after that, with CEO Marissa Mayer appearing on an earnings video, a few high profile acquisitions, news of increased web traffic and finally the “30 days of change” campaign which took the brand score to its highest level in 2013.
Say what you will about the campaign, but under Marissa Mayer and CMO Kathy Savitt, most of Yahoo’s moves seem to be helping its brand make a slow but steady recovery. Now if only they could back it up with more product development and innovation.
