How do you stay relevant in an ever-changing world?

The brief

Although widely regarded as an iconic British brand, the Yellow Pages were struggling to maintain relevance to both consumers and advertisers alike. We’d already helped them back in 2007, resulting in a number of initiatives being developed including what became their Compact Edition. Following the success of that, they wanted us to answer another question: how can Yellow Pages add value over and above the search engines?

What we did

To understand the Yellow Pages potential value in this highly competitive market, we focused on consumer and advertiser behaviour since the web took over. We also worked closely with Yell stakeholders to understand their current and future product initiatives, their relationship to Yell.com and 118 247, as well as the overall corporate culture and perceived barriers to change. Through a series of collaborative, interactive workshops we explored 3 key areas: What is the Yellow Pages advantage, how do we increase regular usage, and how do we get consumers to connect more with advertisers? 

Result

The ideas generated during the workshops formed the basis of 3 strategic directions, which included immediate solutions, disruptive solutions involving longer-term strategies and collaborative solutions with other Yell business units. The Yell team then took these learnings and the momentum they created to populate and promote all their future initiatives. 

Client's Comments

"I’ve now worked with the PDD team on a couple of occasions. They bring a great range of specialist skillsets to a project, that facilitate broader thinking, great fun and some excellent results."

Phil Johnson, Head of Printed Product Management,