Yahoo!: Netting the first-time user

In an attempt to get potential surfers to embrace Yahoo! India, the portal’s new commercial showcases the benefits of email over the inconvenience of snail mail

It's a classic situation… the postal delivery of a letter intimating the arrival of guests after the guests have arrived. In fact, it's a situation that has been elevated to iconic status by almost everyone who wants to make a point about the tardiness of the postal service.

It is also, perhaps, the most logical situation to demonstrate the effectiveness of email over snail mail. Yet, surprisingly, none of the assorted free email service providers have ever used this as a peg to communicate the benefits of email. Until now, that is. For the new yahoo.co.in commercial does a delightful take on this angle - with a nice little twist towards the end.

The commercial starts with this largish, middle-class family (distinctly hillbilly and penny-pinching by nature) preparing to visit their next-of-kin in some faraway city. The family goes to great lengths to reach the city, enduring a bumpy ride on the roof of a bus and wedging into a single berth of a crowded train. The family finally makes it to the city and arrives at the kinfolk's doorstep… to find the door locked. As the family members ponder their next move, the postman comes by and hands over a letter - the one that was supposed to have informed their kin of their arrival.

After a period of time, the family again decides to make the visit to the city. Only this time, the man of the house is wiser. He uses Yahoo! to mail his city-bred brother about their arrival. It's a different matter that the moment the city slicker sees the mail, he hurriedly gets his family to pack the bags and head out of town…

"The inspiration for the ‘brother' commercial stemmed from the experience that quite often, our hard work comes to naught only because the right message didn't get to the right person in time," says Abhijit Avasthi, creative controller, O&M. Of course, in the commercial, the right message does get through to the right person the second time round, although that has little bearing on the country cousins' fortunes. But then, the ending adds to the comic element. "We have tried to bring alive the brand personality of Yahoo!, which is ‘fun & friendly'," says Ganesh Raman, account director, O&M.

For Yahoo! India, focusing the communication on the basic benefits of email is top priority. And unlike some of its rivals who have advertised on television, Yahoo! is not talking about faster downloads or add-ons such as auto-responders et cetera. Neither is it communicating features such chat. It's clear Yahoo! is not talking to a Net-savvy audience, but addressing the first-time user.

Yahoo!'s logic goes like this. email, which consumes 48 per cent of on-line time, is the key reason that draws new surfers onto the Net. And the communication strategy for yahoo.co.in evolves from the maxim ‘catch them first and they will stay with you.' The idea is to get users of conventional mail to embrace email. And Yahoo!.

"As leaders in the Internet business, we have decided to enlarge the size of the market," says Deepak Chandnani, country head, Yahoo! India. "The communication highlights the advantages of using email as against snail mail, which would appeal to a potential user. Also the Yahoo! personality of being friendly and fun attracts the existing users of email services."

Without doubt, there is a huge market out there, what with Net penetration growing in leaps and bounds. In fact, as per published reports, the forecasted figure of Net users in India will touch 18 million by 2005. And it is these new users who will determine the growth of portals such as Yahoo! India. A fact that Yahoo! appears to have caught on at first shot.

Agency: O&M, Mumbai

The Team:

Creative : Abhijit Avasti, Iqbal Arab, Manoj Joshi

Servicing : Govind Pandey, Ganesh Raman, Rohan Mascarenhas

Production House : Highlight Films

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