The stupidity that is Yahoo! advertising

Yahoo! has never been that good when it comes to promotions. They either do it so weak that nobody ever notices it, or do it so wrong that everybody notices it.

This is one (of several) of their promo ideas, and is seen periodically as a background image when logging into a Y! service:

On first impression, you might think, "Okay, this isn't so bad. Not great, but not bad. It's colorful. Cute..?"

Look at it again.

First, this is a woman - meaning not a teenage girl - who has sleeved tattoos of Yahoo! logos, Facebook, Flickr and a few others.

Wrong market, Yahoo. Wrong. Frickin'. Market. You need to go younger and establish a new generation of Y! users, and this simply isn't cutting it.

Second, the slogan is redundant. It should just be "Your personal everything."

I'm guessing own is supposed to.. what? "Reinforce" personal? It's just a stupid slogan. Dropping own would in fact make the slogan much more effective and, surprise, more personal and, surprise again, make the product more inviting. Not only is "your own" redundant, but it makes Y! look like something marketed towards children or stupid people, e.g., "Your very own personal coloring book!"

I sincerely believe Yahoo! suffers big time from Left Coast mentality which is why they've never been able to hit the mark concerning their promotional campaigns. Next thing you know they're be using a comic book to advertise their products. Oh, wait, Google already did that and it was a huge pile of fail.

Yahoo!, here's a suggestion: Try an ad agency in New York. Get some east coast thinking into Sunnyvale, because you seriously, and I mean seriously, need it.

And on the off chance the above promo was by an NYC ad agency, dump them and try another.