New Brand for the Yellow Pages

What are your thoughts on the Yellow Pages? The Yellow Pages used to be one of the most important marketing tools for a business, as the ad would literally reach the masses. But with a change in technology allowing tools like Facebook and Twitter, and not to use the social media tools as my sole being for this article, but the Yellow Pages are slowly being replaced by word of mouth – better yet, word of mouse – techniques.

I just saw, while driving down the interstate, a Yellow Pages billboard. They have completely changed their logo and their branding to a more hip and modern style that you would expect a company to use when trying to market their products to a younger generation.

The logo itself is actually quite interesting; it looks very similar to an iPhone or iPad application logo. They are getting away from the traditional Yellow Pages logo and their new design only has YP in it. The text they are using is a lot more new age and the look and feel is a lot more edgy. This just screams modern marketing campaign.

If you are a business owner, are you still promoting your business in the Yellow Pages? Me, for instance, I don’t have any interest in the Yellow Pages. It seems that once or twice a month someone delivers the Yellow Pages to my front door as well as to all the other homes in my housing addition. I will get home from work and see a large bag sitting on my front step. There are usually two; a very thick and more localized Yellow Pages. This one might actually add some value to a local business that is trying to guarantee that they reach the masses. But who is reading these things? I’m not reading and I am very interested in saving money. I am also very interested in finding things to do in the city in which I live.

I currently live in Fishers, Indiana and am always looking for something fun to do in the evenings and on the weekends. The people who created the Yellow Pages had me in mind when they released the first edition. I don’t go to the Yellow Pages for that information. I go online. I visit sites like Google and Yelp to help me stay connected with new and popular businesses in my area whether a new shopping center or a happening nightclub, or the next best restaurant to open in town. I find all this information online.

I do travel quite a bit both with work and for pleasure, and anytime I go somewhere the first thing I do is find the city closest to me on Groupon and I am checking Yelp to find reviews of places that were either recommended to us or places that we saw on our way to the hotel or elsewhere. A prime example of this is a recent trip I had to Arizona.

I was out there to visit some family and someone suggested we visit the Elephant Bar for lunch. I had asked my cousin, who lives in Arizona, if it was a good place to go. She didn’t have many things to say about it. She said it was a chain restaurant and the food was mediocre at best. We get to the restaurant, after having looked it up on Yelp and other social sites, and had a good time. We had a couple of drinks in the bar and then headed to our table for a full meal. The prices were a bit high, but it was acceptable. The food was nothing to brag about, but you don’t pay for the food but rather the atmosphere and the quality of service that we obtained.

Back to the Yellow Pages. I didn’t find a phone book to find a phone number for this establishment. I went to my iPhone and used a variety of free applications to learn everything I could about the restaurant. I read reviews on Yelp, I checked in on foursquare and Gowalla when I got to the restaurant, I even had turn-by-turn directions to the restaurant through Google Maps. All of the information I found was through a mobile device, not a print phone book.

If you are a bar or restaurant, do you still waste the money (and I have no idea how much it costs) advertising in the Yellow Pages? If you are a small business are you in there? What are your thoughts on the Yellow Pages?