Why Yahoo extensions work
The latest hit wise News and Media category weekly report on the top 10 News and Media category websites ranked by US market share of visits puts Yahoo news above Google, CNN, MSNBC and the Drudge Report.
Now that's good news for Yahoo, enduring a rough time in its combat with Google on searches. In fact, tell you what, it isn't easy for consumers to associate Google with news as much as they can, with Yahoo. That's because Google's identity as a search engine is deep and enduring. That makes it harder for Google, when it comes associating with news as a category with the same name.
This demonstrates the relevance of stimulus and its generalisation or discrimination, depending on associations. Any brand that's an iconic one, with a certain association that's strong will find that extending the brand name (read, stimuli) into another category may not work for it. And so instead of an extension, its better to move into a diffrent category with a completely new name. Like what Google did with Social Networking, calling it Orkut (after its creator), rather than having it christened with a Google related named.
The fact that Yahoo's more a portal with no strong associations is why the brand name (read, stimuli) can be generalised. Yahoo News works better for consumers in terms of identity than Google News. It shows. Yahoo News' No. 1.
Now that's good news for Yahoo, enduring a rough time in its combat with Google on searches. In fact, tell you what, it isn't easy for consumers to associate Google with news as much as they can, with Yahoo. That's because Google's identity as a search engine is deep and enduring. That makes it harder for Google, when it comes associating with news as a category with the same name.
This demonstrates the relevance of stimulus and its generalisation or discrimination, depending on associations. Any brand that's an iconic one, with a certain association that's strong will find that extending the brand name (read, stimuli) into another category may not work for it. And so instead of an extension, its better to move into a diffrent category with a completely new name. Like what Google did with Social Networking, calling it Orkut (after its creator), rather than having it christened with a Google related named.
The fact that Yahoo's more a portal with no strong associations is why the brand name (read, stimuli) can be generalised. Yahoo News works better for consumers in terms of identity than Google News. It shows. Yahoo News' No. 1.
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