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Is Yahoo! in danger of sinking?

Posted in Digital, Mel Varley, Latest reporters' blogs October 26th, 2007 by Melinda Varley

Over the past couple of months, Yahoo! founder and chief executive Jerry Yang has been conducting a “100 day strategic” review, but what’s got the marketing team running scared?

Over the past three months top Yahoo! marketers including Cammie Dunaway, Blake Chandlee and Gary Coleman have jumped the sinking ship that is the second largest search engine in the UK.

Yang has said he is planning to review the business and how its resources can be placed more efficiently, leaving many employees fearing their job security.

With a £2.6 million ad pitch well into the final stages it’s a wonder why any of the agencies involved should continue on amidst so much uncertainty.

Yesterday, the internet giant appointed Andrew Cocker as its new marketing director who will now head up the pitch process. Does this mean the process will start over?

Yahoo!’s third quarter results weren’t astronomical but instead reflected the current state of the business – uncertainty.

This year the search engine has suffered many set backs including a knock back as it tried to acquire social networking phenomenon Facebook and now it faces losing its online shopping site Kelkoo.

Terry Semel left the company in summer after pressure from angry and unsure shareholders and this was followed by the departure of Stephen Taylor, European regional vice-president and managing director of search.

While Yahoo! is a huge company and employs around 530 in the UK alone, it is still suffering in the face of competition, namely from Google who has celebrated a record year following its acquisition of YouTube.

Yahoo! needs to up its game and Yang should reveal the outcomes of his “100 day review” because if its own employees are unsure about whether to stay on board, what will Yahoo!’s advertisers do?