Yahoo! delivers Stern for post-show on Friday
A few minutes ago, I posted over at The Media Drop about Yahoo!'s announcement that it would be hosting the Howard Stern "post-show" this Friday, December 16, where the shock jock will be celebrating his move to SIRIUS Satellite Radio and his decades on terrestrial radio. The key to this whole story is not that Yahoo! has snagged this opportunity, but that Yahoo! hasn't just made some domain name that they're publicizing. Most likely there will be one for simplicity's sake, but they are directing people to "go to yahoo.com and search for "Howard Stern." to find out where to go. After that, users "will be taken to a special countdown site where they will have access to the webcast, as well as other exclusive Howard Stern-related content." Most likely no one that will be showing up will be a Yahoo! newbie, but the homepage will definitely land a ton of traffic because of this move.
Right now, Yahoo! has placed the link to the countdown site on the front page, and it's reachable here. But the fact that Yahoo! will be able to show the full array of what Howard Stern content they're providing and housing through their engine is what is smart. And by putting that "countdown" page up now, you're alerting millions of Stern fans that they can go to this site, and advertisers are clearly into getting eyeballs who are doing nothing but "waiting" until Friday's event. That's not to say that people will sit there, browsers open, until that point, but you get my drift. Additionally, Yahoo! has expanded to its Flickr property and linked to a tag, howardnation, where users of that service can publish photos for other Sternphiles to see.
This isn't anything out of the ordinary as far as Web marketing goes, but it's a solid use of multiple properties and platforms within a particular portal. The acquisition of Stern's person for this time is what's huge, as even non regular Stern fans may be tuning in to his final show on Friday, where it would surprise me if it wasn't mentioned that he'd be on Yahoo! shortly thereafter.
