Coverage: Yahoo CEO naps through meetings

As if Yahoo didn’t have enough troubles with advertisers these days, CEO Marissa Mayer made headlines at Cannes for sleeping through meetings with ad executives.

Suzanne Vranica had this story for The Wall Street Journal’s CMO Today blog, which cited an unknown person saying her actions indicated she didn’t understand the value of advertisers:

For media companies, the Cannes advertising festival is all about getting face time with top media buyers and advertisers. Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer missed a golden opportunity to do just that last week.

Last Tuesday evening, Interpublic Group arranged a private dinner at the swanky L’Oasis for Ms. Mayer to meet executives from marketers such as Mondelez International, brewer MillerCoors and Greek yogurt maker Chobani. It was supposed to be a chance for Interpublic and some of its clients to get a first hand update from Ms. Mayer on what Yahoo has to offer.

But Ms. Mayer was nearly two hours late, and several dinner attendees including IPG Chief Executive Michael Roth ended up leaving before she arrived, people familiar with the matter said.

Ms. Mayer told some attendees that she had fallen asleep, some of the people said.

“If it were an investor meeting, a board meeting or a potential acquisition, I am sure she or someone from her team would have woken her up,” said one top executive in attendance.  “It is another instance where she demonstrated that she doesn’t understand the value of clients, ad revenue or agencies,” the person added.

Business Insider reported in a story by Dave Smith that Mayer was criticized for her speech to the gathering of advertisers:

The CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, was criticized for her presentation last week at the annual Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, an ad-industry get-together.

Her presentation to the advertising community was panned for being too canned and inauthentic.

After we wrote about her presentation, a tipster who attended Cannes emailed us with more on Mayer’s performance. This tipster asked to remain anonymous.

Here’s what our tipster told us:

First, she bombed at the Palais as she basically read her entire presentation from teleprompter screens. Was stiff, forced and it showed as she tried to pander to the crowd.

Then she went to WPP’s Stream conference, where she was grilled by Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP. After giving another canned presentation, Sorrell hammered her. First he asked her what it would take for her to return an email. When she responded she returns every email, he stated that she hadn’t returned his, that Sheryl Sandberg returns his instantly and should he take it personally that she doesn’t. Then he asked her what her relationship with Dan Loeb was. When she responded “very good,” Sorrell chimed in, “That’s not what Dan tells me.” This is front of every key WPP executive and many of her peers.

Brandon Bailey of the San Jose Mercury News had some sympathetic comments about Mayer’s mistake in his story:

But others were more sympathetic. “Bet money Marissa Mayer isn’t the 1st executive 2 show up late to a client dinner,” Elizabeth Gorzney, a telecommunications marketing manager, said in a Twitter post. “Interesting how the media portrays women in leadership.”

The story is unfair, agreed Joan Williams, a professor at the UC’s Hastings law school and co-author of a new book, “What Works for Women at Work.” In an interview, Williams said the episode seems a classic example of how male and female executives are treated differently because of gender bias.

“He’s busy, she’s highhanded. He’s assertive, she’s aggressive,” said Williams. “She was late to a meeting — hello?”

Other commenters said Mayer may have been exhausted, noting that she’s the mother of a young son or could have been jet-lagged. Yahoo hasn’t offered an explanation and Williams said it’s nobody’s business.

“Marissa Mayer oversleeps a lil bit and everyone loses their minds Cut her some slack,” tech enthusiast Abhiram Ramesh of Bangalore, India, wrote on Facebook. “She’s just human too for god’s sakes.”

A Bloomberg story by Kristen Schweizer put some numbers around just how costly the mistake could be for Mayer and Yahoo:

While Cannes remains a showcase for all kinds of ads, the digital newcomers expect to take an ever larger share of the market. This year, companies will spend some $203 billion on TV advertising and $122 billion online, up from $153 billion for TV and $55 billion online in 2009, according to ZenithOptimedia. The researcher predicts digital spending will exceed that on television by the end of this decade.

AOL CEO Tim Armstrong attended the Cannes festival to promote the company’s Huffington Post news website as well as the 16 new online TV series AOL expects to introduce this year. And Microsoft held a lavish beach party with DJ Calvin Harris, where the company highlighted original productions coming out of its Xbox Entertainment Studios.

Yahoo’s lineup includes “Other Space,” a 30-minute show produced by Paul Feig, the director of the film “Bridesmaids.” Yahoo has also commissioned “Sin City Saints,” a comedy about a pro basketball team in Las Vegas from Bryan Gordon, director of the TV series “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

The questions continue to swirl about Yahoo’s future and if its move into content will actually work. But the key to all these plans still remains advertising dollars. And it’s not like Yahoo is the only site on the Internet. It may be that Mayer is forgiven for sleeping on the job, but like all things that involve relationships, she likely needs to do some apologizing.