Who remembers when the previously must-have phone directory suddenly changed its 80-year-old name to a colour of the rainbow?
It seems, from all the small business owners I talk to as I travel around the state training, that most were not even aware of the massive re-branding exercise Sensis (that’s Telstra) embarked upon and now, just as quickly, have reversed.
No doubt some marketing guru had convinced the rattled telco’s board that a name change was just the thing to get those tired old fingers to tear themselves away from their PC keyboards and start walking back to the corporate coffers with handfuls of gold.
The fact, that directory revenues tanked in 2009 for the first time ever, must have convinced the hard heads at head office that a prompt about face and back-to-the-future strategy was called for.
But if newspapers have lost their fabled rivers of gold (classies) to the internet you would have to say that the re-invented Yellow Pages are also at a critical tipping point and their so-called golden goose is becoming a wee bit egg bound, to mix a metaphor.
Of course, in the UK they ditched the old moniker for the simpler ‘Yell’ (presumably the poms are colour blind – since they haven’t about faced) and in some parts of the US they embraced SMARTPAGES as a brand for their online activities.
I should point out that YOC’s online business directories, SMARTPAGES, are in no way associated with Yellow Pages, Telstra or Sensis.
What’s the future for hard copy directories?
Consider for a moment that Verizon, the publishers of both White and Yellow Pages in New York, have just applied to the authorities over there to cease printing the White Pages in hard copy.
When you consider the publication has been an integral part of every day life in that city for over 100 years, something pretty dramatic is happening to print-based directories.
And since Australia follows the US closely in most technological innovations one can only assume a similar fate awaits the White Pages here down under in the not too distant future.
However, the real gold is in the yellow version of the print directories which will no doubt linger while their owners wring the last few years of super profits from an over-mature product that is now well and truly approaching its use-by date (revenue exceeds $1bn per annum).
In the immediate future just about every small-to-medium size business I speak to (not hundreds but many dozens) is considering a cut back of some kind.
For a large percentage of SMEs Yellow Pages directories are the only advertising they do – a lot of tradies spend nearly $20,000 each year.
Some are going 50/50 print and online. Some who are currently No.1 in their categories are still fearful of letting their competitors assume the position they have held for decades.
Last year many of these hapless companies had to consider 50 per cent hikes just to hold on to their places and are saying they are not in a position to absorb further price rises.
Some are saying they will pull out altogether (not a position I would support, for the record); nearly all are saying a minimum 25% (in $ terms) will be trimmed (but hopefully negotiate to keep existing size) and re-allocated to the internet in some fashion.
Yellow Pages will be under immense pressure to maintain the bulk of their print directories so they will likely be persuaded to cop a decrease in revenue but will still keep the existing artwork sizing.
The last thing Sensis will want to see is a slimmer directory next year – pity about the trees, but that’s another story.
It would seem the days of small businesses being gouged annually by a telco monopoly are quickly coming to an end, but the demise and final death knell of Yellow Pages in hard copy, like the premature obituary of another great US institution (Mark Twain), has been greatly exaggerated.
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