The disaster relief outreach has been a truly global effort. Yahoo! Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, India, Philippines, Hong Kong, Canada, and Brazil have all featured ways to help on their properties. In the U.S., Yahoo! News, Mail, Search, Finance, Shine, Answers, and Groups have provided ways to drive additional donations.

Via the Yahoo! homepage, users can donate to a wide variety of non-profit organizations, including the Red Cross, International Medical Corps, Salvation Army, and Convoy of Hope. Funds are used to provide necessities such as clean water, food, and blankets as well as medical clinics, shelters, and other basic services.

Yahoo! employees are also making personal contributions to help those affected by the earthquake and tsunami. Yahoo! is matching all employee disaster relief donations at a rate of 2:1, up from the traditional 1:1 match, with a minimum donation of $100,000. In addition, the Yahoo! Employee Foundation has made a grant of $50,000 to the American Red Cross.

In Tokyo, our partners at Yahoo! Japan have fought through blackouts and communication outages to stay up and running. Their homepage currently features comprehensive information on the state of infrastructure, traffic, services, and assistance throughout the country. They have also partnered with telecommunication companies to provide a people finder with voice messages that can help residents locate their loved ones.

It has been truly impressive to see how quickly our audience and employees have jumped in to show their compassion and concern for everyone in Japan. It shows that even in these hard times, we can come together to make a powerful difference. This has been a true testament to How Good Grows on Yahoo!.

To learn more about how you can make a difference, visit Yahoo!’s How to Help page.

-Erin Carlson, Senior Director of Yahoo! for Good

In Taiwan, “Westernized” eating habits and intense competition from imported foreign agricultural products had severely affected the livelihoods of farmers and sparked a rise in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases.  Yahoo! Taiwan leverage our position as the country’s dominant Internet portal to promote local food via “The 100-Mile Diet”, urging Taiwanese to support domestic agricultural products and show our patriotic spirit for Taiwan!

Targeting almost 16 million Internet users in Taiwan, the campaign hinged on the indicator that support for domestic agriculture was an expression of love for Taiwan as a country.  The “Local Food” website featured human interest stories about farmers, local food experts and a Taiwanese food Wiki.

To expand our influence via physical channels, Yahoo! Taiwan partnered with Matsusei, the chain supermarket known for organic, high-quality local produce for a press conference to launch the “Local Food” campaign.  Additionally, direct contact with the public was made at the Taipei City Government’s famers’ markets.  Goodie bags and a drawing for a one-year rent-free occupation of a farm attracted additional attention to the campaign.  Three “celebrity wives” attended a Queen of Energy Drinks competition, ensuring intensive media coverage.

The online promotion attracted more than 10 million visitors within the first three months of launch; 4.3 million searches on “Local Food” were recorded on Yahoo! Taiwan; 200,000 votes were generated in a “favorite fruit” campaign;  and more than 20,000 words and 1,000 photos were generated via blogger articles.

Congrats again to the team for a tremendously successful campaign!

First launched in 2002, the awards encourage internet users to vote online and give recognition to their favourite local and international brands. An independent market research firm was engaged to conduct interviews with advertisers and brands to come up with the nomination list.

After six weeks, we gathered two million votes.

The Yahoo! Emotive Brand Awards ceremony in Hong Kong was held on 19 May 2010 at the Four Seasons Hotel and was attended by more than 200 advertisers, brand representatives, luminaries and media.

The top three winning brands are: Canon, Cathay Pacific Airlines and the Hong Kong Ocean Park.

Following the great success of the initiative in Hong Kong, this year, Yahoo! Kimo in Taiwan launched the same awards in the market and introduced a new category – ‘Yahoo! Asia Emotive Brand Award’ to find the brands consumers in both Hong Kong and Taiwan love. The top three winners for this category include 7-Eleven, Sony and Sony Ericsson.

Check out the event videos:

As the leading online advertising platform in Asia, Yahoo! in Hong Kong and Taiwan continue to help brands leverage the online medium to better connect and interact with their consumers. Stay tuned for more exciting initiatives and campaigns from Yahoo! in Asia!

Jeff Han
Vice-President, Marketing, APAC Region

A group of Yahoos from Taiwan recently banded together to run up the Taipei 101, which weighs in as the world’s tallest skyscraper at 101 stories with 2,046 steps. That’s 508 meters or one third of a mile… straight up. It was part of a masochistic race called the “Taipei 101 Run Up,” which pits teams against each other to see who can reach the top first. The 20 participating teams included major brands like Coca-Cola, Nike, and Bayer.

Sporting purple Yahoo! T-shirts, our team included a few senior Yahoo! executives, including Ari Balogh, our executive vice president of Products and chief technology officer (visiting from California); Rose Tsou, senior vice president of our Asia region; and Charlene Hung, general manager of Yahoo! Taiwan.

So, how’d they do in this ultimate Stairmaster challenge? They placed fifth, just a few spots behind last year’s second place finish (when they lost out to the fire department — the only team you really want passing you). And the fastest Yahoo? That would be Ari, whose addiction to energy bars clearly paid off. He scaled the building’s 101 stories in just 18:26.

Here are some photos from the race and sweet victory:

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor