Yahoo to sponsor Wireless Festival as part of new positioning

By Maisie McCabe, campaignlive.co.uk, Tuesday, 12 March 2013 08:00AM

Yahoo, the US internet company, has signed an estimated high six-figure deal to sponsor this summer's Wireless Festival as part of a three-month run of gigs in Europe and the US.

Robert Bridge: senior director and head of international marketing at Yahoo

Live Nation’s Wireless Festival is moving from Hyde Park to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford this year, and Yahoo’s headline sponsorship will give the brand a major presence over the weekend and provide content for its sites.

Wireless will be the culmination of a series of gigs and experiential events to position Yahoo and its products, such as mail, Flickr and celebrity site OMG, as services that brighten up people’s daily routines.

The Yahoo On the Road Tour across Europe and the US will aim to transform people’s daily routines through everything from surprising morning coffee drinkers with a celebrity guest, to major concerts and gigs.

Robert Bridge, the senior director, head of international marketing at Yahoo, said the campaign would be the biggest campaign for Yahoo for some time and "reflects the direction of the business" following the arrival of chief executive Marissa Mayer.

Bridge said the Yahoo Wireless festival would be the "culmination of ‘On the Road’ programming", following stops in the US and Europe and was part of a strategy to align the brand closer to music.

The US gigs will begin at the end of April and the first European event will be held in Berlin in June.

Bridge declined to go into details about Yahoo’s wider advertising plans, but said the brand would use an "integrated marketing approach" in the run-up to the Wireless festival, offering money-cannot-buy prizes to Yahoo users.

The Yahoo and Wireless partnership was created and negotiated by MediaVest's content division, LiquidThread.

Today, Wireless has announced it has added a third day to the festival, and across the weekend (12 July to 14 July), its line-up will include Justin Timberlake, Jay Z, Snoop Dogg A Tribe Called Quest, Nas, Rita Ora and Emeli Sande.

This article was first published on campaignlive.co.uk