Yellow Pages Advice

Here's a brief article by Adams Hudson, a marketer who services primarily the HVAC and Plumbing industry.

His advice on Yellow Pages ad design is straightforward, helpful and is not usually offered by the sales person who is paid for increasing your budget.

Win $5,000 Local TV Campaign from SpotRunner

Got a note from SpotRunner that they are running a contest to give away a $5,000 local tv campaign.

If you don't know about SpotRunner, you've got to check them out.

They make it so easy (and cheap) to run local cable tv ads.

See, local cable is required by law to run a certain amount of local information or advertising.

SpotRunner negotiates to buys this space on the cheap for the advertiser and make it very affordable.

They have amazingly high production value commercials and because the cable channels don't have to have sales people, they're thrilled to get dang near anything for te space.


Here's their note to me . . .

Spot Runner launched a sweepstakes this week giving local businesses the opportunity to win a complete television advertising campaign, including an ad of their choosing from our library personalized to their business, $5,000 worth of television airtime, a consultation service with one of our media experts and a portable DVD player.



Entering the sweepstakes takes just seconds, easily done on our homepage at www.Spotrunner.com, where you will also find complete details. Final entries are accepted through September 5, 2006.

Achtung! Der Yellow Pages for All

Just like in the US, the German courts have ruled that the trademark "Yellow Pages" and the German translation "der valking finkers" are generic terms and can be used by anyone.

Oh joy!

Now our friends in Germany can enjoy the confusion that we do. Multiple directories sharing a common name and trademark. (Hopefully the Germans will use better sense.)

Well, I have to give their online advertising credit. For GoYellow.de, their commercial featured the amazingly talented Paris Hilton rolling around in her underwear waiting for a delivery boy.


It's hella more interesting than the lame ads we see stateside for online directories.


Deutsche Telekom loses "Yellow Pages" brand

After some two years of consultation, the the German Office of Patents and Trademarks (DPMA) has ruled that "Gelbe Seiten" and "Yellow Pages" does not deserve protection. Rather, as the DPMA told German news weekly Der Spiegel, these terms are merely general descriptions of services that are not protected. In other words, all providers of industry listings can call their registries of addresses "Gelbe Seiten."

This decision is a major setback for Deutsche Telekom: its subsidiary DeTeMedien was attempting to have these common terms registered as trademarks and had filed a large number of claims against competitors who also called their industry listings and Internet directories "Gelbe Seiten." Indeed, Telekom has filed more than a dozen suits for alleged violation of trademarks against just one company, Internet service provider GoYellow Media AG, in the past two years. "This is a real breakthrough," GoYellow's general manager Klaus Harisch stated. According to the upcoming issue of Der Spiegel, this decision does not surprise legal experts.

At the same time, GoYellow is not finished with the courts. While the struggling provider of online industry directories and Internet information services no longer has any unfinished business with Deutsche Telekom, it recently lost a legal dispute concerning its name with power provider Yellow. The ruling is not, however, legally effective because GoYellow has appealed. (Craig Morris) / (jk/c't)

Yahoo! Local Insights

The conference call with Yahoo! Local started with a few technical bumps, but once we got rolling, Paul discussed several important developments in Yahoo's plans.

It was no surprise to me that he places heavy emphasis on having channel partners to provide full-service to local businesses.

The relatively new "Featured Listings" products on Yahoo! Local offer prime positioning in a limited inventory rotation on either the top of the page of relevant search results ("North" rotation), or on the bottom of the page ("South" rotation).

Commando hint: buy the top, and buy it now. There isn't a more important local network of sites, and these spots won't last long. The prices range from $20 - $300 per month depending on classification and geography.

Also, Yahoo's Enhanced Listings (which sell for $9.95) generally increase user activity by double the unenhanced listings.

Another Commando hint: enhance your listing and load that profile with relevant content and especially photos.

More later . . .