New ad spots for Yahoo DSP were released this week as part of the demand-side platform’s multichannel Expect Results campaign. The campaign includes three 15- to 30-second videos — ‘Promotion’, ‘Acronyms’ and ‘Medals’ — and marks the first connected TV campaign for Yahoo’s ad-tech offering.
The ads were created in-house in collaboration with creative agency Conscious Minds. They star comedian Milo McCabe as his Troy Hawke character, known for his lavish complimenting of complete strangers, whom McCabe originated in 2012 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and has since built a following of over 1 million on both Instagram and TikTok. Each ad shows Hawke earnestly interrupting presentations to gush about his colleagues’ abilities.
So far, Expect Results has included channels such as LinkedIn, targeted email campaigns and partnerships like a programmatic integration with Netflix. The new CTV ads will also run on social media, with two additional spots featuring Hawke produced exclusively for social.
“Troy embodies the ‘Expect Results’ message in a way that’s witty, warm and unmistakably human,” said Shannon Shae Montoya, Yahoo’s VP, head of global B2B marketing, sponsorships and events, in a statement. “It’s a refreshing departure from the typical B2B playbook.”
The year for Yahoo
In the face of stiff competition from ad-tech giants such as The Trade Desk, Google and Amazon, Yahoo is using the humorous ads to differentiate itself on a third dimension, brand, outside of just cost and performance. Yahoo is running the ads on its own DSP, which it claims demonstrated “a nearly 90% win rate in head-to-head tests” against competing DSPs.
In addition to Netflix, Yahoo DSP has partnered with Shipt and Spotify within the past year. It also struck deals last month with DoorDash, StockX, Dollar General and Nextdoor to broker ad sales on its platform in exchange for the brands’ audience data, in a bid to create a commerce media stronghold for itself. In September, it was reported that Yahoo had successfully lured business away from The Trade Desk with lower prices.
In the background, there are still rumblings of a potential sale of the DSP. Yahoo’s private equity owner, Apollo Global Management, has been selling off other assets of the brand, though a sale of its DSP (informal and unofficial at this point) would complicate the issue of managing troves of first-party data tied into it.
Yahoo hyped up its DSP, along with investments in sports and creators, as selling points during its Newfronts presentation earlier this year.
