Yellowpages.com Billboard Focuses on Mobility

Yellowpages.com recently launched a billboard campaign that emphasizes Internet-based business-to-consumer search in five target markets: Atlanta, Orlando, St. Louis, Detroit and Sacramento.

The campaign, designed by WPP Group’s Mediaedge:cia and created by GSD&M Idea City (Austin, TX), will eventually add viral media and local search. It already taps television and online ads.

Matt Crowley, Yellowpages.com CMO, said the company intends to help advertisers reach consumers across cellphone, online and television ads. He said parent company AT&T’s three-screen strategy will provide services not offered by other Internet-based business-to-business or business-to-consumer search companies.

Yellowpages.com offers mobile ads as part of its package of services, along with video business profiles. Consumers can download and share the video, which acts as a widget, or post to other sites.

Taking advantage of AT&T’s partnership with Apple as part of the campaign strategy, Yellowpages.com designed a cellphone application for the iPhone that lets consumers find and share business information based on local search. The application is built on Apple’s recently released software-development kit.

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The 3G iPhone’s popularity will help increase traffic for Yellowpages.com, which typically experiences double-digit searches from consumers on handsets during the weekends.

Yellowpages.com has more than 140 million searches per month and was ranked No. 26 in comScore's top 100 URLs for May 2008.

Rival Yellowbook.com is planning to upgrade its advertising to reach consumers through video and mobile ads. Yellowbook.com tends to use national media to talk about the brand, not a specific service.