Yahoo is about to launch an $85m advertising campaign which they hope will increase traffic to their home page by taking a swipe at Google’s minimal homepage design. The campaign is the second time Yahoo have attacked Google in recent weeks, after their CEO criticized Google’s business strategy in a recent interview with BBC news.

According to an article from the WSJ, Yahoo’s new ad campaign will feature across TV, the web and billboards promoting the slogan “Your favourite stuff all in one place.”

In the lead up to the campaign, Yahoo have released a speak peak at some of the creative they will be using. The video below (which we assume will be used as a TV commercial) is critical of Google’s home page design and aims to inform users about the black and white difference between the two designs.

One of Yahoo’s biggest challenges from this campaign will be translating these offline advertisements into a measurable increase in homepage usage. Getting customers to take action online is a difficult task which many companies have failed in the past.

Other blogs such as search engine land have suggested that Yahoo could have better invested the money into improving their products,

But rather than trying to restore or improve its “brand image” with TV — and is that the place that its target audiences are these days? — Yahoo would do better to invest in building or improving specific products and/or making targeted acquisitions that support a larger product strategy or vision

Time will tell if the campaign is a success, but Yahoo certainly has many challenges ahead.

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