Yahoo's New Mobile Site Has Blurry Ads
Marissa Mayer went on the Today Show this morning to introduce Yahoo's redesigned homepage and mobile sites.
The problem? Well, other than the fact that Yahoo has a partnership with Good Morning America and Mayer went on its biggest rival, after looking around the mobile site, I found that
They're blurry.
If you look at the ad to the right, which was a banner above a story, you'll notice that while the text is a little blurry the company name (under the green text bubble) is illegible.
That's going to be a big problem for advertisers.
At the moment, there aren't many mobile ads propagating the site. Those that are on the Yahoo's mobile page usually appear on the top or bottom of a story.
But almost all of the ads I saw had a similar problem.
It was difficult to read the white text on this Nissan ad:
And, once again, the name of the advertiser that actually bought this banner ad (it looks like LowerMyBills.com) is almost impossible to read. And getting the advertiser's name out there is arguably the most important part of an ad.
Ad Age noticed the issue as well with an eBay ad that also appeared on one of the stories I clicked on. The color contrast doesn't work when the white letters are blurred.
While one expects some initial kinks in a newly relaunched site — and mobile banner ads aren't known for being attractive — this is noteworthy considering the emphasis Mayer has put on the mobile experience.
On the Today Show, Mayer told Savannah Guthrie that part of Yahoo's new strategy was "capitalizing on the trend towards mobile." There are 200 million users on Yahoo's mobile site every month, after all.
Mayer has also discussed the importance of creating non-intrusive ads that are personalized to users.
"There's usually a way you can introduce advertising such that it's not intrusive, that it
But from an advertiser and user's perspective, the current ad display leaves something to be desired.
Of course, this could just be an overarching design issue. When looking at Reuters' logo (right), the lettering read kind of blurry as well.
Yahoo did not immediately respond to a request for comment.