Case Study: Revitalising Yahoo's Branded Content Strategy

Project: Using Tumblr to drive Yahoo editorial content marketing revenue.

• My Role: Project Co-Lead with Ad Technology Team. Hands on work: product strategy, planning, stakeholder collaboration, data analysis.

• Timeline: 2016 - 2017

Overview: Faced with a declining traditional sponsorship business and inefficient content creation workflows, Yahoo needed a revitalised approach to branded content. As a design leader, I spearheaded a cross-functional initiative to develop a scalable, data-informed, and creatively robust solution. By leveraging Tumblr as a flexible platform and integrating insights from across Yahoo's distribution network, we streamlined production, enhanced creative quality, and achieved significant revenue growth.

The Challenge: Navigating a Shifting Landscape

Yahoo's existing branded content model was struggling.

• Declining Revenue: The traditional sponsorship business was facing headwinds, necessitating new revenue streams.

• Inefficient Workflows: Building custom campaign websites was a time-consuming process, often taking weeks, which bottlenecked campaign launches and inflated costs.

• Siloed Data: While research informed the creative process, data from Yahoo's diverse distribution platforms (native ads, video, social) wasn't fully integrated to optimise content strategy and performance effectively.

• Scalability Issues: The existing process wasn't equipped to handle the growing demand for diverse branded content formats efficiently.

We needed a strategic shift towards a more agile, data-driven, and scalable system that could deliver high-quality, creative and measurable results for clients.

The Approach: Cross-Functional Collaboration & Platform Innovation

My role as a design leader was central to defining and driving the solution. The approach focused on collaboration, strategic platform selection, and integrating data into the creative process.

• Forging Cross-Functional Alignment: I initiated and facilitated collaboration between key teams – Studio (creative), Content Marketing, and our Ad Technology team. This ensured buy-in and aligned our innovation process around the shared goal of revitalising branded content.

• Strategic Platform Selection: We identified Tumblr as the ideal campaign platform due to its inherent flexibility, speed, and user-friendliness. This choice was crucial for enabling rapid site creation, customisation, and content uploading, even for non-technical users.

• Developing a Scalable Template System: Our innovation process led to the creation of several modern, responsive Tumblr templates. This standardised the foundation while allowing for customisation, drastically reducing build times.

• Empowering Creators: The templates were explicitly designed to empower non-technical team members (like project managers) and external content creators to publish content quickly and independently across various formats:

  • Long-form editorial: Promoted via native ads within Yahoo's editorial streams.

  • Video content: Distributed through Yahoo's video products.

  • Short-form visual content: Amplified using Tumblr native ads.

• Integrating Data for Smarter Creative: We enhanced the existing research-informed creative process by systematically integrating performance data and benchmarks from native, video, and social distribution channels. We also incorporated social listening insights from the wider web. This provided a richer foundation for creativity and a compelling performance story for clients.

Implementation: Launching the New Ecosystem

The implementation phase focused on rolling out the Tumblr-based platform and embedding a data-driven approach into the workflow.

• Template Rollout & Training: The new responsive templates were launched, accompanied by training sessions to ensure teams could utilise them effectively.

• Streamlined Publishing: Project managers and creators began using the Tumblr platform, dramatically accelerating the publishing timeline for various content types.

• Data-Informed Content Tailoring: Creative teams actively used the newly integrated data streams to tailor content for specific platforms and audiences, optimising for engagement and performance.

• Unified Distribution: Campaigns seamlessly leveraged Yahoo's full suite of distribution products (Yahoo native ads, video products, Tumblr native ads) for maximum reach and impact.

The Results: Measurable Impact & Transformation

The strategic shift yielded significant, quantifiable results, validating the design-led, collaborative approach.

• Significant Revenue Growth: By intelligently leveraging Yahoo's distribution network and offering a compelling branded content solution, we achieved 33% revenue growth for native branded content. This helped offset the decline in the traditional sponsorship business.

• Consistently Great Creative & Performance: Focusing resources on content quality and creativity (rather than complex builds) and using data to tailor content allowed us to consistently beat performance benchmarks for clients.

• Drastic Efficiency Gains (Time = Money): The new template-based system reduced website build times from weeks to days, enabling faster campaign launches and improving overall team productivity.

Qualitative Impact:

• Improved design and sales team relationship with smoother workflows. This project also helped the wider sales team understand the value of the Tumblr platform beyond social media projects - it gave them more options when selling.

• Stronger client relationships built on demonstrable performance and faster turnaround times.

• A more compelling and data-backed story for the commercial teams to take to market.

My Role & Key Takeaways

As the design leader on this initiative, my key contributions included:

• Strategic Vision: Identifying the need for change and articulating the vision for a new branded content ecosystem.

• Facilitating Collaboration: Bringing together disparate teams and fostering a shared understanding and goal.

• Driving Platform Innovation: Leading the selection of Tumblr and overseeing the design and development of the flexible template system.

This project demonstrated the power of design leadership to drive business transformation. By focusing on user needs (both internal teams and end clients), fostering cross-functional collaboration, and leveraging technology strategically, we turned a business challenge into a significant growth opportunity.