Yahoo’s CMO wants to make longtime loyalists proud

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The internet isn’t that serious. One of its original brands doesn’t have to be, either.

Since Yahoo CMO Josh Line joined Yahoo in 2025, the internet brand—which was founded in 1994—has rolled out a merchandise line, struck up partnerships with buzzy brands like Liquid Death and Graza, and rolled out a “touch grass” keyboard for April Fools’ Day that sold out in 20 minutes on TikTok Shop.

“We’re taking lots of shots on goal,” Josh Line, Yahoo’s CMO, told us. “I think the big thing is we’re sort of accelerating the cadence of our marketing, and I think it’s really building the mountain for the brand and for the business.”

Line sat down with Marketing Brew at Cannes Lions to tell us more about how the brand is approaching partnerships, working with creators, and reminding longtime loyalists about the best parts of the Yahoo brand. Here are a few highlights.

On finding the right brand partnerships: When you’re partnering, there’s a reason why you’re partnering—your partner has an audience and has developed trust with that audience and expectations, and can help introduce you to that audience. As we’re getting back out there, partnerships, whether it’s talent or a fashion brand, it’s helping to reinforce this…We definitely have doubled and tripled down on creators and our approach to them—everything from really creative partnerships to very lightweight partnerships. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the Staples Baddie—she works at Staples, and her content was exploding on TikTok. Well, we noticed that in her handle, she used a Yahoo email address, so we sent her a gift bag. We gifted Staples Baddie before Staples realized. We’re thinking about it in light and nimble ways. We’re thinking about it strategically. We’re thinking about it as a performance channel at this point.

On reigniting latent brand love: In the beginning, a lot of what we would hear back was, “Yahoo? You guys still exist?” And now we get the opposite…People are really excited to see Yahoo back. What’s fascinating is, people who’ve had [Yahoo] for a long time, especially email users, they stand up and they’re proud when they see us doing these things…There was a real latent love. It’s been sort of dormant as a brand for many years, and so I think people love seeing us get back out there…A part of the energy we’re trying to build back into the brand is making the people who have been with us all along feel really proud to use us.