Yahoo’s Mayer: we’re committed to monetizing Tumblr

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer held a press conference today to flesh out more details about its $1.1 billion acquisition of blog platform Tumblr, which was confirmed yesterday after days of rumors.

“Tumblr prides itself on being a home for brands, established and emerging, we at Yahoo are all about brands,” Mayer said on the call. She also compared some of the more obvious talking points about the new companies, such as Tumblr skewing a much younger audience to Yahoo’s very aging populace. Yahoo has about 700 million to 1 billion users to Tumblr’s 300 million users, so there will be some spillover, but not in terms of how people are using these two services since both are very different. She also said eight of the top 10 most valuable brands are using Tumblr to promote themselves on Tumblr, which should continue in the future.

But the biggest thing Mayer touched on was Yahoo’s commitment to monetizing Tumblr, which is something the blog platform struggled with as it grew. Mayer highlighted that she would bring the company’s newly launched streaming ads product to the site, which are now featured on both Yahoo’s homepage and its newsfeed. Not only that but Yahoo’s commitment means hiring new engineers and ad sales people to boost revenue from Tumblr.

“You only do an acquisition of this size and scale if you find an exceptional company… and find an exceptional fit,” Mayer said, adding that Tumblr is that company. Yahoo plans to keep the entire Tumblr team in place with founder David Karp in place as CEO. Both brands will also stay separate with Karp reporting directly to Mayer.

“We want to let Tumblr be Tumblr, she said.

“In terms of advertizing, David and I both share a love for pop culture and… [he] talked wistfully about the ads he saw as a child that would make him want to see a movie or want a particular car. Where are the ads that are like that [online]? Where are the ads that are great content in and of themselves?,” Mayer said of the deal. “The current state of Internet advertising doesn’t aspire to be as good as the content itself. We think that should change.”

Any new ad products that Yahoo introduces to Tumblr will likely be native-based, and enhance the whole experience. That’s nice to hear if it ends up being true, because the last thing Tumblr users want is to notice is Yahoo’s strategy to grab cash.

Image via Marissa Mayer/Tumblr