Yell announced last week that it will cease production of its famous printed business directory, the Yellow Pages, after 50 years. The final edition will be delivered in January 2019 in Brighton, where the company began, as it switches its focus to digital.
Since 1966 the Yellow Pages has proved invaluable for businesses and customers alike. However, the phenomenal growth of the internet and the continued adoption of digital by users of all generations means the public no longer have to dig out the heavy directory and sift through the wafer thin pages to find a plumber, roofer, solicitor or smartphone repairer. Instead, they simply tap and swipe on their smartphone’s internet browser to find the business or service they need.
The company has acknowledged the changes in consumer behaviours and the impact of technology advancements and say it is committed to supporting local businesses online.
Speaking about the recent announcement CEO, Richard Hanscott, said: “We’re proud of the transformation we’ve made from print to digital. Like many businesses, Yell has found that succeeding in digital demands constant change and innovation.
“We’re well placed to continue to help local businesses and consumers be successful online, both now and in the future.’’
However, this is a move that is about 5 years too late and doomed to failure – in the opinion of some of us at Vizulate. We have felt for a long time that the Yellow Pages was on borrowed time and that Yell is fighting a losing battle with its digital offering.
Its digital business has focused on free and paid listings on Yell.com (the online version of Yellow Pages), selling and executing Google AdWords campaigns, and building small business websites. But it’s too easy to pick some pretty big holes in at least one of these offerings.
Their free and paid listings offering is a non-starter. On their website Yell claims to be ‘The UK’s leading online business directory’. It isn’t. Google is the UK’s leading online business directory.
Unless you open your web browser, be it on desktop, tablet or mobile, with Yell.com then the majority will open it with Google (or Yahoo or Bing). So why would a user search Google for Yell.com, go to Yell.com, and then search within Yell for the service they are looking for when they can simply search for the service they are looking for directly from Google, and probably get better results?
Okay, you could argue that there may be local businesses listed on Yell.com that don’t have a website and therefore Google may not know they exist. However, there are thousands of businesses without a website worldwide that have a Google My Business listing with simply a phone number, address and even a Facebook Page – which Google will know about.
Speaking of Facebook, in reality we don’t even have to open a web browser to find a business or service. We can simply open our Facebook app on our smartphone and search on Facebook or, even better, get our friends to do the work for us by asking for ‘Recommendations’.
If we sound a bit damning of Yell we don’t mean to. The yellow book took pride of place by the household phone for over five decades and its marketing campaigns produced some iconic TV ads – who can forget J.R. Hartley and the Simon Schatzberger French polisher sketches?
Sadly, in recent years and in too many homes the Yellow Pages has adopted a popular direct route to the recycling bin without ever leaving the cellophane wrapper and should serve as a warning to businesses big and small that fail to embrace digital.
