Marissa Mayer Is Flying 25 Stars From Media, Government, And Academia To The Caribbean

Later this month, Yahoo will fly 25 guests to the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean for a "thought leader" summit, a source familiar with the event's planning tells us.

Half the guests will be chief marketing officers for big brands: Yahoo's best clients. The other half will be "thought leaders" and from academia, government, and the media. A few "industry leaders" from technology will also attend.

The retreat will last a day and a half.

Each of the 25 guests are going to also give a presentation. The presentations will be on best practices and "the future of tech and media."

"The point is that this is a dialogue. Everyone is presenting and everyone is talking to each other," says a source. "Yahoo wants to be a thought leader."

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is smart to finally spend some quality time with Yahoo's big ad clients.

Two reasons:

Last week, AdAge published a story in which a several sources in the agency community complained that Mayer and her COO Henrique De Castro have largely ignored Yahoo's biggest buyers since they joined the company in the middle of last year. It doesn't sound like Yahoo invited agency executives to the summit, but we don't think the agencies will mind. If an agency's client is going to spend a lot of money on a brand campaign after a meeting with Marissa Mayer, the agency will still get its cut.

We are hearing persistent whispers that Yahoo's Q1 display advertising revenues are going to be disappointing. Though many expect Mayer may save the quarter through search revenue optimization, display advertising is Yahoo's core business. If the display numbers are too soft this quarter, the shot clock on Mayer's turnaround will have begun in earnest. Time to start selling.

You can find Turks and Caicos just north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic on this map:

This is what it looks like on the ground:

Lucky dogs.