DBS have been anticipating it for many years but Yell have finally announced the demise of Yellow Pages as consumers increasingly turn to digital.Yell will be delivering the final editions of Yellow Pages in a phase out programme that starts with the Kingston book in 2018 and ends with Brighton in 2019.Many DBS clients have gradually phased themselves out of advertising in Yellow Pages but DBS sees an interesting opportunity here."The final editions of Yellow Pages are likely to be retained by households for years to come" said David Clarke, director of DBS "This means that any advertisers who go in the last edition of Yellow Pages will benefit from a greatly extended shelf life." Yellow Pages has been around in the UK for over 50 years. The Yellow Pages sunset in 2019 will be a nostalgic moment for DBS who started life as a Yellow Pages advertising agency in the UK in 1996.

This year the Gatwick Yellow Pages directory will be published in a new "compact" format.

To most companies, advertising in Yellow Pages is the unshakeable cornerstone of their annual marketing spend and they would no more think of cancelling it than they would hire David Brent as office manager.

Yell recently published a financial report for the 2006 financial year.
UK revenue increased by 3% to £719 million. Their online directory Yell.com had a massive growth of 61% which accounts for the revenue increase.
Printed directory advertising is on the decline. It fell 3.1% as the total number of advertisers fell by 2.6% to 450,000. This equates to roughly 12,000 Yellow Pages customers walking away. Whilst this is predictable I doubt that Yell shareholders will be happy. In our opinion the only way to grow their business will be by pushing yell.com hard this year - look out for some healthy rate increases too.
Whilst DBS believes that yell.com can drive business your way there are also many other alternatives to explore in terms of internet marketing.