Yahoo!

I look for the user before I look for the device. The photograph offers only a pair of shoes under a restroom stall door. Then the headline supplies the answer to an unasked question: “YAHOO! here.” Its handwritten “here” seems to intrude into a private place, making the location both the joke and the proof of the product’s claim. The ad is willing to be a little impolite to make “everywhere” memorable.

The lower half explains the mechanism. A compact eLink handheld with a small screen and keyboard sits beside a “FORTIFIED WITH YAHOO!” seal. The body copy promises wireless access to Yahoo! email, instant messaging, and WAP-enabled Internet sites. It does not show a person actually using the device in the stall, and the scan gives no evidence about coverage or speed. The scene is a demonstration by implication: if the service can follow you here, the advertiser suggests, ordinary places will be easy.

That premise marks a change in the meaning of access. In this ad, taking internet services away from the desk is still an event worth announcing, and the named WAP sites remind us that the mobile web had its own technical doorway. A present-day reader may take portable email and messaging for granted, while also feeling less delighted by the idea that online life follows them into every private moment. The latter is an interpretation of the ad’s joke, rather than a claim about its original audience.

For a young copywriter, the headline works because “here” is so small and specific. It arrives after the oversized Yahoo! name, and its loose script looks like an answer added in the moment. “Everywhere*” then expands that single restroom location into the formal product promise. The copy teaches a useful sequence: show one surprising case, state the general benefit, and finish with a short list of services that makes the benefit concrete. The asterisk remains visible, though its qualification is not legible in this scan.

Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo. It currently offers Mail, Search, News, Sports, Finance, and advertising services.

The desire to keep messages and information within reach persists. The dedicated eLink device, WAP-enabled sites, and the novelty of being online in a restroom place this particular expression of that desire in 2000.