More shake ups at Yahoo

This weekend Yahoo Inc. announced it was merging its search and display advertising units.

by Helen Leggatt

First-quarter results for Yahoo were poor. Now, the likelihood of weak display ad revenues hurting second-quarter results, has led the search engine to overhaul its advertising units.

The merger of the two ad units is seen as a move to better serve their customers who are increasingly demanding ads that combine search and display, as well as newer video formats. "When combined, the two organisations will deliver profoundly better results than when delivered separately,” said Gregory Coleman, executive vice president of global sales at Yahoo.

The re-structuring sees the departure of U.S. chief sales officer, Wenda Harris-Millard, just one week after co-founder Jerry Yang replaced Terry Semel as chief executive. David Karnstedt is reported to be heading up the new sales team.

"Integrating our world-class search and display sales teams under David's leadership will allow us to better serve all of our advertisers' marketing objectives ranging from brand awareness to direct response," said Sue Decker, President, Yahoo. "This is one of many important steps we're taking to re-invigorate our display business, further build on our industry-leading position in advertising, and drive thought-leadership in the online advertising marketplace."