A media giant has been born.
Yesterday, Verizon announced its acquisition of Yahoo for $4.83 billion, gaining access to Yahoo’s brands, technology, and 1 billion users.
This is not the first time a company has set its sights on buying Yahoo. In 2008, Microsoft made the internet company a $44.6 billion offer, which was turned down. As this drastic change in price tag illustrates, Yahoo has struggled to maintain its position as an industry titan in recent years. Despite CEO Marissa Mayer’s best efforts to turn the company around, Yahoo has been unable to keep its stock and street cred from plummeting.
Verizon, on the other hand, has been on its way up. In May of last year, it announced a similar acquisition of AOL for $4.4 billion. Verizon’s aim was to marry its expansive network with AOL’s advertising technology and expertise. Verizon was also eager to tap into AOL’s growing engagement with mobile and video advertising.
Now that Verizon has purchased Yahoo, it can close the gap between its own advertising efforts and those of the industry’s leaders: Facebook and Google. Whereas Verizon once lagged behind in technology, platforms, and usership, it can now harness the power of both AOL and Yahoo’s assets.
Some of the assets now included under Verizon’s umbrella include:
- ONE by AOL: an all-in-one platform that allows both publishers and advertisers to run and track digital media campaigns. As described on the ONE website, “The ONE by AOL suite offers Media Planning, Audience Management, Creative Optimization, Analytics and Attribution, as well as our market-leading display, video and TV DSPs. All of this connected through shared technology, data and insights.” For Verizon, ownership of this technology means increased appeal as a one-stop shop for advertisers.
- Yahoo Mail and Yahoo Mobile: With Yahoo Mail’s 225 million active users and Yahoo Mobile’s 600 million users, Verizon now has the potential to track and target an expansive user base.
- Tumblr: A popular social media site for millennials, Tumblr is a valuable asset to Verizon in that it opens up opportunities to advertise to a younger audience. Sites like Yahoo Sports and Yahoo News also offer advertising potential, Yahoo News alone reaching 83 million people a month.
- Verizon Wireless Network: As noted by BBC News, Verizon itself has an extensive user base. As on of the top mobile networks in the US, Verizon has “a wealth of data from smartphone users that it could mine.”
The merger of AOL technology with Yahoo’s advertising potential makes Verizon a force to be reckoned with. Like Facebook and Google, which utilize their built-in user data and ever-evolving advertising technologies to market to advertisers, Verizon now has a data and tech goldmine of its own. It’s an exciting time for businesses who are looking to step up their digital marketing games. Increased competition between advertising platforms means advancements will start churning out even faster. In the coming years, all platforms will have to meet the increasing demand for mobile and video advertising formats, as the world turns away from static advertisements and towards rich media.
The combined brainpower of Verizon, AOL, and Yahoo means the potential for groundbreaking advancements within the advertising world. Google and Facebook, look out: there’s a new giant to wrestle with.
Image Source: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35479175