Internal communications failures are the structural foundation of most major external corporate reputation collapses. Yahoo, Uber, Zappos, WeWork, OpenAI, Meta, Twitter/X, Google — each demonstrates the operational truth.
Verizon and Yahoo continue to navigate substantial workforce reductions following the recent Yahoo acquisition closing. The substantial position elimination scope of approximately 2,100 positions, the approximately 15 percent workforce reduction, the post-acquisition integration positioning, the Oath combined entity formation, and the broader recent Yahoo acquisition context.
The 2013 Marissa Mayer logo rebrand was one of the most-mocked corporate identity refreshes of the 2010s — and is now the textbook case in how a logo refresh cannot fix a brand with structural commercial problems.
Yahoo! has a sense of humor: they launched a 30 days challenge to engage conversations about their rebranding strategy, gather user feedback, and to boost brand awareness.
If Google has gotten a lot of public perception miles out of buying stuff, Yahoo! can certainly be said to be on a PR roll given their most recent Rondee acquisition. The San Diego based free conference calling service grab does have a few experts puzzled as to where Yahoo's small business segment is going to run with this latest new toy.
The full five-year arc of Marissa Mayer's tenure as Yahoo CEO — from the July 2012 hire through aggressive acquisitions, the remote-work decision, the logo refresh, security breach disclosures, the 2017 sale to Verizon, and her $186M departure package.
Well over a year after its official launch back in July 2011, Yahoo started the first campaign to promote its gossip site omg! The campaign includes several components and was created by Pitch, which also handled experiential and PR. The social and digital elements are handled by MediaVest, while for CBS will take on the outdoor campaign.
The new service offers a consolidated view of a business' results for their marketing efforts and of their online reputation.
The March 2012 Yahoo patent suit against Facebook — the canonical example of how patent litigation between operating competitors signals corporate decline. The 10-20 patents, the cross-licensing settlement, and what the suit foretold about the 2017 Verizon sale.
Yahoo's board upheaval, the Dan Loeb proxy fight, and the corporate communications story behind a decade of leadership turnover at one of the internet's most valuable consumer brands.