Yellow Pages

"Highlight Your Hood"

Once a trusted source for bringing business and consumers together, Yellow Pages had lost its status as a go-to resource and was seen as the old phone book rather than a digital directory. Over the past few years, the brand invested heavily in its digital offering, creating a utility-based website and new mobile application it believed would connect people to business. But it had to compete with digital giants like Google, Yelp, eBay and Shop.ca for local search.

So the brand and Leo Burnett decided to drive awareness of Yellow Pages' mobile app and get the app experience into the hands of millennials by demonstrating Yellow Pages' deep local knowledge. When it came to searching for anything local, the brand needed to move people from an automatic "I'll Google it" to "I'll YP it."

Yellow Pages still had credibility as local experts based on its long and reputable history. The brand simply had to shine a light on it again in a new and relevant way. So it decided to launch a citywide, integrated campaign called "Highlight Your Hood."

Hyper-local messaging was tailored for specific neighbourhoods, allowing YP to demonstrate its intimate local knowledge and shine a light on the hidden gems that exist in neighbourhoods across Toronto.

Over a hundred customized illustrations worked in conjunction with local headlines to drive the awareness, relevance and credibility of YP's hyper-local knowledge. Digital, mobile and night projections were used to serve up information about a specific neighbourhood spot at the moment people would most likely be looking for it. The agency also tailored the media strategy to days of the week and the time of day to serve messaging that suggested appropriate local activities depending on what day or time it was. Whether people were walking their dogs, at the beach, waiting for the bus or out on a Friday night – YP was there.

There was break-through and prompted recall of 65% (which is significantly above YP norms) and total mobile visits to Yellow Pages increased 21% during the campaign period vs. the previous year. In fact the GTA program was so successful that it is now being rolled out to other markets across the country.