I received a very inspiring and impassioned letter from Dennis Fromholzer, President of CRM Associates, and someone who as an independent researcher has provided third party research to the yellow pages industry. Despite some negative forecasts, he believes the yellow pages has great potential and will continue to deliver products of great value.
He has every right to be optimistic. Throughout his career, Dennis has worked with Yellow Pages publishers and advertisers around the world, and has personally dealt with hundreds of advertisers directly to understand their perspectives and challenges.

The biggest challenge, he says, is overcoming the “myths and misperceptions held by many that the industry is in decline. To do so, we must truly believe in the VALUE the industry brings, communicate it, and have a sense of excitement with the advertisers about what we can do for their businesses.

In his letter, he wrote: Selling Yellow Pages is getting tougher. There is no way around this. The Internet is changing the rules of advertising and challenging the traditional advertising model. All media, including Yellow Pages, are affected. The traditional intrusive, impression-based media model may truly be on its death bed. Advertisers have a much wider choice of advertising alternatives than in the past.

Much greater emphasis is being put on being able to prove results than ever in the past.Many people have the perception that the paper Yellow Pages product is going away. They are wrong.

Indeed, there are many baseless predictions, as you may have gleaned from previous entries in my blog. Yet the Yellow Pages does, and always will, have a good story to tell.
Dennis raised some very valid points:

• At the same time consumers are complaining about increasing ad clutter in other media, there has been a sharp increase in the percentage of Yellow Pages users who believe there needs to be more ads in the directories and more information in those ads (2007 YPA Industry Usage Study).
• A recent study commissioned by AT&T found that small businesses ranked print Yellow Pages as the medium that generates the most calls from potential customers and the top reason small businesses cited for taking out any ads at all. Some 63% of small businesses advertise in a printed Yellow Pages directory, the most commonly named form of advertising among respondents by a two-to-one margin. (2007, Western Wats Data Collection Agency)
• Yellow Pages continue to be the dominant medium reported by consumers that influenced their purchase decisions (for top headings). (2007 Media Impact Study, TNS)
• The Yellow Pages industry has funded tracking of calls to approximately 130,000 ads over the past 10 years, giving a strong base for proving accountability and delivered ROI. The average ROI for Yellow Pages is about the same as for online and search advertising, and exceeds all other media, including direct marketing. (2007 Metered Ad Study, CRM Associates)
• Publishers are now offering the information in Yellow Pages directories in multiple media online, CD, mobile. This allows advertisers to reach consumers whenever and however the consumers want the information.
• Yellow Pages are the most trusted source of advertising rated by consumers in today’s market. (Forrester Research, 2007)

We are still relevent and we are still widely used. But that doesn’t change the fact that, in these changing times, we all must become a little “smarter” at understanding the value of our products and at being able to effectively communicate the value of the Yellow Pages.
Value is the catchphrase. Yellow Pages continue to provide high value to advertisers and users alike, Dennis wrote. The underlying dynamics of usage provides the potential for growth of usage and growth of the business. The underlying data suggest that a positive and vibrant future is possible. The opportunities exist for the industry. Future growth of Yellow Pages is a function of decisions made by publishers on whether or not to believe in and invest in the business. The potential is there, but it will only be realized if the publishers and the reps make it happen. It requires a belief in the product, it requires excitement, it requires knowledge and training, and it requires measurement and tracking of value.

The Yellow Pages have gone virtual, in terms of mapping technology at least. Late last month, Microsoft Canada and the Yellow Pages Group (YPG) announced that the innovative imaging and location capabilities of Microsoft Virtual Earth mapping software is now available on YellowPages.ca, Canada’s leading online directory.

The addition of Virtual Earth technology to YellowPages.ca will not only provide a far richer user experience to YPG’s over seven million users, it will also allow YellowPages.ca users to have interactive maps featuring up-to-date location data, driving directions, high-resolution satellite and aerial images, as well as the ability to view map results in photo-realistic 3D views.

According to Jean-Pascal Lion, YPG Vice President of Marketing:

“We needed a mapping solution that was easy-to-use and offered enhanced functionalities for our users, which in turn is beneficial to our advertisers. It also had to be reliable enough to accommodate our business growth plans. After reviewing several mapping services, it was clear that Microsoft Virtual Earth could meet our criteria.

“In today’s world of online services, people want to find information faster and more easily, but they also demand rich and engaging user experiences. By working with Microsoft technology partner and Virtual Earth experts Infusion Development, YPG is able to deliver a better experience to its users. The innovative Virtual Earth mapping platform provides added value to the YellowPages.ca site,” added Mark Relph, Microsoft Canada’s Vice President of Development and Platform.

With the advent of Internet Protocol TV (IPTV) in which TV is delivered through phone lines the rules of the game are changing, and the cause of contention for many companies and municipal governments caught in the middle.

A case in point: Last Jan. 20, the Alabama-based Huntsville Times reported that telecom giant AT&T is fighting against local franchise laws for its new IPTV video service, U-verse. (U-verse boasts more than 40 high-definition TV channels, the ability to customize weather, sports, stock and traffic news on the TV screen, and has a Yellow Pages channel for searching out phone numbers.)

AT&T said they will be reluctant to break into Huntsville, Alabama market if the municipal government seeks to require them to enter a franchise agreement for video services, similar to deals the Huntsville has with Comcast and Knology. The company is willing to pay the city the same rate (up to 5% of its annual gross revenues for video services) but it does not want to be subject to “build-out” requirements that are common in franchise agreements.

Other companies and their state lobbying association contend that if AT&T is providing video services via a line into a home, it is acting as a cable company and should be subject to the same rules they operate under. In other words, AT&T falls under the category of cable operator a thin line and gray area, if there was any

Under the 1901 Alabama Constitution and federal laws governing cable companies, municipal governments control their rights of way, the article in the Huntsville Times stated. That means cable TV providers and other right-of-way users, such as telecom companies, have to secure a franchise agreement to gain access.

AT&T argued that they have already been granted use of Alabama rights of way access to the state’s roads and highways as far back as 1867. AT&T’s position is that its franchise obligations are to Alabama’s Public Service Commission and the Federal Communications Commission, not local governments.

AT&T’s argument is it should be not be subject to local franchise agreements. In some states, it has worked out a franchise agreement with state government. In Alabama, the company has secured video services agreements with six smaller Alabama cities. Those towns require the company to pay a 5 percent fee on revenue it collects, but it is not subject to other franchise agreement terms.

City of Huntsville has been working on a new law that seeks to provide a uniform agreement for cable, telecommunication and other similar companies, rather than separate agreements with each company.

The proposal has met much resistance by AT&T and other such companies providing a totally new service, one that was not around in the century when the law was passed. But companies like Knology, which says it would face new franchise fees for its phone service unlike Comcast and AT&T also have their own stiff objections.

The City of Council of Huntsville claims that their only goal is to treat all providers with fairness. The ordinance is designed to ensure continued competition, they said in a statement, that the public right of way is protected and that each provider is treated fairly and equitably.”

Social networking seems to be going mobile, with Facebook, MySpace, and Friendster adding functions or applications that allow users to access their online profiles through your mobile phones.

But, according to a recent posting I came across in Wap Review, it’s been around since the days of the new millennium in a more archaic form, however. There is the German-based Peperoncity (www.peperoncity.com), for example, as well as TagTag (www.tagtag.com) and ItsMy (wap.itsmy.com).

When they were launched almost 7 years ago, such mobile-friendly sites allowed users to create a simple WAP-based homepage using a menu-driven site builder. But over the years, they incorporated features now quite common in today’s world: chatrooms, messaging, friend lists, content sharing, and guestbooks. Now, they’re as equipped and fully loaded as the next social networking site.

Established in 2000, Peperoncity was created to allow users to meet great mobile people from all over the world and create your own WAP site. It’s available in a variety of languages French, Italian, Polish, German, Portuguese, and English and its current number of active users has breached the 460,000 mark, with 3.5 million mobile webpages and counting.

Peperoncity users may also sell downloadable content and collect payments using Bango (www.Bango.com). In addition to the peperoncity.com site, they also provide a white label mobile social platform to mobile operators including O2, T-Mobile, KPN and TIM.

According to the Wap Review post, Peperoncity is one of the few purely mobile plays in social networking today. New users can register on the mobile site, although both a phone number and an email address are required. Your site can be created and maintained using only a mobile phone. There is a PC web interface, but all of its functionality is also available in the mobile version.

Given all the buzz over mobile marketing and the growing popularity of social networking in these interactive times, pioneers like Peperoncity are well ahead of their times as they’ve always been, apparently. Soon, with the increased development and mass availability of internet-friendly mobile phones like the iPhone and its tech-savvy spawns, mobile social networking may take off in more ways than one.

Online videos are slowly becoming essential components of many directory sites, Canada’s Yellow Pages Group (YPG) included.

On January 16, YPG introduced its brand-new Profile Plus multimedia service an enhanced business profile web page on yellowpages.ca that will be launched this spring. It will now include video clips, photo galleries, and other useful information about merchants. The deployment of the new service to advertisers is currently underway.

The new Profile Plus web page will include the following components:

1) A dynamic 30 to 60-second video profile of the business

2) A photo gallery where advertisers can showcase up to 10 photos

3) Business details, including location and contact information, hours of operation, products and brands, methods of payment, map and directions, etc.

With Profile Plus, companies can showcase their products and services in “live action” and/or still images, thus adding a dynamic new dimension to their message to consumers. For their part, consumers will gain access to a more complete picture of a particular company and what it has to offer through YellowPages.ca. As such, users will be able to make more enlightened purchase decisions.

“Given that more Canadians than ever are viewing online videos, we are convinced that the video service will provide advertisers with a more compelling and value-added vehicle for bringing their business offerings to more customers,” shared Jean-Pascal Lion, Vice President of Marketing, Yellow Pages Group, in a press release.

In relation to this news, Superpages.com also recently announced a vendor relationship with online video company TurnHere.com last December 3.

SuperPages.com, which lays claim to 18 million small-to-medium-sized business listings in the US, began testing a video advertising system for its clients in July 2007, a service it then made fully available three to four months later. Now, they’ve signed with TurnHere to access their videographers, who can visit businesses and create videos for them.

Aside from SuperPages and YPG, Yellow Book USA and Citysearch and have also begun offering video ads to their clients. Not surprisingly, they’ve also turned to video production houses like TurnHere to capitalize on their expertise and staff in creating such ads.