Yellow Pages Assoc. Changes Name to Local Search Association

The Yellow Pages Association announced yesterday that it was changing it’s association name to The Local Search Association.  This name 

change alone, represents a big shift in a business advertising methodology that has been in existence since 1886, when the Reuben H. Donnelley company published the first telephone directory.

There was once a time when any Yellow Pages directory controlled business listing advertising in print.  Their sales representatives applied no skill to the sales call, as they walked in and merely asked the advertiser “did you want to run the same ad?”.  All of this changed as the efficiencies and affordability of the Internet became more and more apparent to business advertisers.  Local store owners realised that they could reach a larger audience, with a deeper and detailed message on the Web, versus any print directory ad that usually only represented a small quadrant in their metropolitan and surrounding area.

With the shift to digital, the Yellow Pages Association and it’s members tried to focus on digital sales, search marketing for their clients and improving their own directory sites, but the name Yellow Pages for many advertisers still meant the 5lb (I am guessing at the weight) book that was dropped at your doorstep, whether you asked for it or not, and today that printed directory doesn’t resonate well with advertisers or consumers.

The name change, in our minds, was inevitable, as the Yellow Pages needed to reinvent themselves to marry today’s online shopping and information gathering society, and they had to do this by more than just a change in product lines, they had to change to the core.

Now a name change may not be enough to elevate the Yellow brand in the minds of advertisers, but we do feel it is a step in the right direction, given advertiser effectiveness quotients (see eMarketer chart to the right) and their brand loyalty metrics (see Google Insights chart below)

Google Insights for Search
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