Remember The Yellow Pages? There’s probably a stack of them on the stoop of your apartment building or brownstone. Millions of them were dropped off recently in the five boroughs.
There are young people who have no idea what The Yellow Pages is and why people would use it.
The Yellow Pages was the “physical Google” for finding local business phone numbers and addresses. For those of us above a certain age, it was our “link” to the services we needed. It was indispensable. Truly.
Not anymore.
They had a great advertising slogan: Let your fingers do the walking. It’s interesting to remember a time when we used The Yellow Pages and the White Pages constantly. The Yellow Pages is organized by category rather than alphabetically. The name? The books were originally printed on yellow paper. White pages were for non-commercial listings.
There are still uses for The Yellow Pages. Well, it makes a great door stop, a counter weight, scintillating bathroom reading. If there’s no Internet service, the Yellow Pages would be enormously helpful. I’d keep it around just in case. There are elderly people and those who don’t use computers who still depend on it.
It’s definitely becoming a relic of another time.
Yellow Pages is still a great source for life changing events. Just ask the national brands why they advertise? With call tracking so easily available today, most businesses know exactly the number of calls they get. If they were to remove themselves from the print directory, how could they replace those leads? Internet, mobile or any other source, there are only so many leads, you need to be able to pay a fair price for those leads, and you can in print yellow pages.
Actually, 7 out of 10 US adults still consult the Yellow Pages and they continue to be a great way to connect local businesses with new customers. And according to our industry archives, the YP were called that because early on (well before the 50’s) a printer ran out of white paper and had to use yellow. Turned out to work well, so it stuck. Smart advertisers use a variety of different methods to reach their customers. and Yellow Pages – print, online and mobile are still a good fit. Full disclosure, I work for the Local Search Association and more about our industry is available at http://www.localsearchassociation.org.
Thanks, Eliot. That is so interesting.
The Yellow Pages were originally named The Red Book, for its red covers. That changed during the McCarthy witch hunts of the 50s when anything red became suspect. Its name was then changed to The Yellow Pages.