The brand man hired to make Yahoo cool again

Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limit all rights reserved. Megan Graham, The Wall Street Journal 5 min Read 06 Apr 2025, 04:30 IST Josh Line, Recently the Chief Trading Officer at Paramount Global, took over as marketing head at Yahoo last week. Summary Josh Line is used to being behind the scenes. As the new chief marketing officer of Yahoo, he must put the company back in the spotlight. Josh Line, recently the chief trade officer at Paramount Global, took over as marketing head at Yahoo this past week. Yahoo was once the king of the internet, with a market value of more than $ 125 billion at the peak of the Dot-com boom in 2000. These days, a Yahoo email account is often seen as a sign of the older age of a user, and people are much more likely to search for Google. Yahoo and AOL valued at around $ 5 billion in 2021, when private equity giant Apollo Global Management bought them from Verizon Communications. But Yahoo is still attracting major traffic: 3 billion global web visits in February, according to app users, according to Simaliefeb, a digital market intelligence business. This is in line with Amazon.com, which produced 2.3 billion, but located Google at 76 billion. Who is better to return the once deepened internet brand in its glory days than the least flashy man in marketing? Josh Line started last week as chief trade officer of Paramount Global, and the chief marketing officer of Yahoo, who could get the brand with consumers and advertisers back in the Zeitgeist. The Yahoo brand is still widely recognized, and many people still use its products like Yahoo Sports and Yahoo Finance every day, even if they don’t realize it, the 46-year-old line says. He remembers that he passed the iconic Yahoo Billboard when he first started working in New York more than 20 years ago. “A large part of the marketing challenge is to relive love and put the brand back into the culture,” Line said. He plans to build on the momentum started by Yahoo’s local Super Bowl ad starring Bill Murray, the brand’s first during the big game since 2002, during the Southwest Tech Festival in 2024, the paramount+ streaming service had a major marketing pressure. A building was renovated as a paramount+ ski lodge where visitors “Star Trek: Discovery” and “1883” Airbrush tattoo or drinks could get in a “legislators” roof -roof. Anne Mullen, a marketer who worked at Nickelodeon earlier, saw the splitting launch and SMS rule, her former colleague, to see if he wanted to meet. Line was then at Paramount Global, who was responsible for the massive marketing opportunity in Austin, Texas. A custom Neon sign hangs at the Yahoo offices in New York. He replied from New York. “He was back at the headquarters and did the hard work,” Mullen said. ‘Paramount+ was absolutely pervasive and everywhere. But he doesn’t have to throw the party because he was the face of it. ‘ In the advertising industry, great personalities are common, with superstar marketing officers operating a circuit of awards programs, podcasts and panel appearances. It wasn’t Line’s style. “I’m definitely a more introverted person, who might not be typical for a CMO,” Line said. He plans to be more public face than before when “important to Yahoo and the brand.” Line grew up in Carlisle, Dad, where his father was a cardiologist and his mother stayed at home to raise him and his two sisters. At Princeton, he finally studied history, despite taking pre-med classes to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I realized that I was good at synthesizing information,” he said. The skill would serve him later if he analyzed data to formulate trademarks strategies. After graduation, he followed investment bank friends to New York. At the request of one friend, he applied for a management development program at the advertising agency Bates Worldwide and finally worked there as an account manager on Pfizer’s consumer products such as Sudafed and Benadryl. Line was fresh from the university when he went to his first focus group. He sat in the back of the room and ate M & M’s and listened to people talking about their experiences with Sudafed and Benadryl and their reactions to test ads and product concepts. “It became clear how important it is for me to put myself in their shoes and think about their experiences and listen to them more importantly, while also acknowledging that their behavior does not always match what they say,” he said. Line worked through the hottest advertising agencies at the time, from the TBWA Chiat Day of Omnicom Group – probably best known for Apple’s iconic “1984” Super Bowl ad – to anomaly and then droga5. Line joined Anomaly in his early days and worked on brands such as EOS Lip Balm and Gold Peak Iced Tea. He helped chef Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin fame to expand a cooking program, cookbook, PBS series and e-commerce website. The show was part of the brand and on a shoe budget, but Line pulled it off, even to work with a general contractor for the first time to build a studio kitchen. “He loved the broad and extensive underpants we got and did not bat an eyelid to tackle things that were shaped hard or different,” said Anomaly co-founder Johnny Vulkan. Line has a reputation as a ‘CEO of Marketing’, given its expertise on management, creativity and data use, says Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone. Line’s pedigree at top agencies placed him on the radar at the entertainment company Viacom when it just introduced an internal agency called Scratch. He is like the wonderful child in the “The Queen’s Gambit” Netflix show who could visualize all the chess pieces in her mind, says Sarah Jane Dhall, who worked with Line at Viacom and is now chief operating officer of Cultural Insights Advisory Cultique. “He can see such a marketing ecosystem,” she said. Line has played a major role in the company’s Herbrand van Viecomcbs and the launch of its paramount+ Streaming Service for more than 14 years to channels such as MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. Although Paramount saw its share in turmoil between corporate mergers and cord cuts of the value of its traditional cable networks, former colleagues say Line could retain peace when navigating major egos and competitive interests. Line lives in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York, with his man of eight years, who works at a large advertising agency. Former colleagues describe Line as someone who is about work a lot of the time, although he says he likes swimming, presentation and cuisine – a hobby he picked up after his work with Ripert, the French chef. Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone said Line’s job would be to reconsider the appreciation for the Yahoo brand. The company wants to persuade consumers that Yahoo is ‘a nice place to stay on the internet’ and that the business is a safe, effective place for businesses to run their advertising. “Over time, there were different sugar heights of people trying to speak the Yahoo brand, but it is not backed by quality and true growth,” says Lanzone. “People are rooting for us, and they want to see us win and get out there again. So, yes, this is a great job for Josh. ” Catch all the corporate news and updates on live currency. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates and live business news. More Topics #News Mint Specials