I’ve been rather disappointed to see the latest headlines of Yell, considering I was one of their first digital employees. Having seen the recent news on Yell changing its name to Hibu with the intention of encouraging consumers to find and identify with it (as if that will work…) and a recent drop in shares, it strikes me how this company has struggled ever since the Internet began and honestly has never recovered.
In 1994, I was working in the strategic department as a tea boy at Yell. This also included counting adverts and reports – it was dull to say the least. For some reason, I was sent on a multimedia, FT conference. It was the first time I heard of the Internet – this was absolutely amazing, I thought. It really rocked my world. Nicholas Negroponte was speaking. It was something I’ll never forget. “Move bits, not atoms”. I rushed back to the Yellow Pages office telling my co-workers that the Internet was brilliant and would change the way we viewed the world.
It sparked a mild interest in my manager and he agreed to get me access to an Internet account. I was the first person to get an email address at Yellow Pages on the business side of things. I recall applying for a promotion later that year and placed my email address on my CV. My boss was rather skeptical and said that no-one would know what an email address is. I remember running demos for the executive management on a 9.6 modem and logging into the Nasa server (yes, THE NASA server), and painfully watching images download. They had no idea what I was so excited about.
Around 1995 or 1996, after doing more research, Yellow Pages decided to fully embrace the Internet opportunity. The head of talking pages – he was viewed as digital – developed a strategy working with CHI. They were later acquired by Razorfish to develop an online platform. At this stage, I was product manager for electronic Yellow Pages; ‘EYP’ listing directory online.
The others came up with a website called Yell; based around content, not directory services. It was ironic that they had all this great content and not making the most of it. After a few years of developing their strategy and leading the design team, it fundamentally felt wrong because they weren’t connecting with consumers in the correct way. They were building content that people weren’t interested in. For example, a database of UK websites, even though Yahoo were already were doing this. They invested a lot of money instead of asking, what can we do with what we have?
I left the business as my philosophy didn’t agree with theirs. To be honest, the whole history of the Yellow Pages didn’t understand the value of their database and were not asking how they could add value to consumers with what they have. The problem was, everyone started with Google (and still does), and then became completely disintermediated.
At the same time, the story of the Yellow Pages book and their business has become redundant by rebranding it. They have severed a connection with their audience. 20 years ago they didn’t have to be sophisticated, but now there are so many other competitors. Once again they have failed to recognize their value and competence.
What we’re seeing is that business models are changing, like HMV, Waterstones and Yahoo. But it’s too late to make the change by being closed to consumer demand via digital. The industry is lagging behind consumers. It’s the canary piece; dying, but going through the life cycle that businesses will start going through. It’s an interesting case study because it could’ve ruled the world and its business management was the inhibitor: not understanding consumer needs.
Nicholas spoke about how consumers would drive the agenda, and the Internet would level all communications. And that’s exactly what happened.
Davenport Face 