By John Letzing Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES
SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones)--Brian Silver agreed to join Yahoo Inc. (YHOO) as the head of its Right Media online advertising exchange shortly before the Internet firm hired CEO Scott Thompson in January to overhaul its operations.
Now Silver is overseeing a branding revamp at Right Media and seeking to bolster its image, amid reports that Thompson may yet sell it off as part of a strategic realignment.
Silver said on Monday that he is able to "tune out" the recent chatter about a Right Media sale. But he also acknowledges questions that have been raised about the strategic value of the unit, which Yahoo acquired in 2007.
"There's this perception gap around, is Yahoo really investing in Right Media, do they have enough from a technology basis," he said. "I don't think personally I would've done this...if I didn't feel there was alignment of strategy or value going forward."
Right Media functions as an exchange for so-called "non-premium" space on websites to place display advertising. Yahoo and its many sites are essentially the service's "anchor tenant," as Silver puts it.
But Right Media won an additional, high profile tenant in February when AOL Inc. (AOL) joined in to make its inventory available via the exchange.
Silver says that Yahoo's new leadership, including Thompson, has been supportive of his efforts at Right Media, which he says now operates in 90 different markets and handles over 11 billion advertising impressions per day.
"In my conversations with Scott, as brief as they may be, he's always looking for someone who is a business leader to drive the business forward," Silver said.
Yahoo completed its acquisition of Right Media in 2007 for roughly $680 million, after having obtained a 20% stake in the venture the prior year.
Since then, Right Media's public profile has faded somewhat in comparison to Google Inc.'s (GOOG) DoubleClick--a Right Media rival that has been helping the Internet search giant make further inroads in the display ad market.
Now Right Media is seeking to make a stronger impression with a revamped website that has "an updated look and feel," Yahoo says, in addition to a new brand with bolder colors and lettering.
The old, aqua-colored brand "seemed a little weak to me," Silver said.
Silver, who has been working in the online advertising industry for a decade, says it's always difficult for a large company like Yahoo to acquire a fast-growing start-up and solidify its position.
"Yahoo learned that lesson with Right Media," he said. "There was a lot of time in which it took to rewrite, to restructure, to rescale."
-By John Letzing, Dow Jones Newswires; 415-765-8230; john.letzing@dowjones.com
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