Editor's Note: Recently, our intrepid reporter E.L. Arnold went to the Association of National Advertisers' Creativity conference in New York City and walked away with key takeaways and solid creative tips for advertisers. In addition, she talked to a pair of industry movers and shakers, Wieden+Kennedy Creative Director, Mark Fitzloff and ANA Group Executive VP Bill Duggan. The question today? "What were some of the best creative campaigns of 2011?

2011, 2012 and beyond on the tens )mostly( and more $10 billion : The approximate amount of cash that NBC, CBS and Fox will pony up to the National Football League over the next nine years for the exclusive rights to show NFL games, according to Ad Week . As they say on the gridiron, "go long!" 10 : The number of things that Daniel Flamberg of iMedia Connection says won't happen in 2012.

Inspiring tips from Yahoo!'s Creative Director Andrew Przybyszewski )"per-shib-er-chef-ski""Andrew for short( began his career in Chicago working at Leo Burnett. Over the ensuing two decades, his deep respect for the consumer has led to a firm belief in never dumbing advertising down. Taking the high road has served him well: his work for Special K, Secret, Starbucks, and The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, to name a few, has resulted in award-winning campaigns.

It's not how it's used, it's what it adds to the conversation Editor's Note: The Yahoo! Advertising blog recently asked several agency leaders one question: " How are you integrating social media into your creative? " Here is the response from Jeremiah Rosen, President of Campfire . Social media gives marketers the thrill of immediacy. It's a real-time opportunity to explore relationships with the audiences circling our brands.

"A nice place to stay on the Internet" "Icon" is a powerful word. It evokes everything from images of faith to Hollywood starlets to the geniuses of technology . There are icons in the pantheon of advertising, too. Some, like, David Ogilvy, are pioneers of the "Mad Men" art and science. Others are historic outdoor signage. The city of San Francisco""Bagdad by the Bay," as the late newspaper columnist and city icon, Herb Caen , called it"is famous for them.

En garde! Dreamworks features dueling custom pushdowns with wallpaper and video on the Movies homepage Dreamworks announced the arrival of its new Shrek prequel "Puss in Boots" in true swashbuckling style with a purring pas de deux of custom rich media events on the Yahoo! Movies homepage and showtimes and tickets page. The introductory animation features Puss striking a pose before he goes all feline on you and starts chasing a spotlight on the ground.

More data and new tools help hyperlocal campaigns hit their targets David Staas, JiWire Here's a sobering statistic for online marketers: 93% of all retail sales in the U.S. happen in brick-and-mortar stores, not on the Internet. The good news is, online campaigns can drive offline sales by targeting specific areas or groups of consumers in and around retail outlets-sometimes convincing consumers to drive five or ten miles to a store by offering them localized content,

Yahoo! Academy and PROVOKE Summit turns the academic into the practical Internet Week Europe kicks off next Monday, November 7 in London, and Yahoo! is a Presenting Sponsor. That means Yahoo! will be all over the old town, offering insights, tips and tricks to help advertisers do what they do better-across devices and across the globe. On the docket: Monday, November 7 Yahoo!

Luxuriate in the sights and sounds of Big Sky Country when you open up this fully immersive, interactive magazine ad for the State of Montana Have you ever wanted to get a fully immersive taste of the great outdoors without actually having to, you know, go outdoors? Now you can, courtesy of a magazine ad featured on Yahoo! News. The Montana Office of Tourism took full advantage of Yahoo! News being the #1 online news destination to run a rich media magazine ad, or mag ad,

Plus: Five ways to get your banners noticed; doing good is good for business; and how to connect with baby boomers Publishing is a lot more than posting: This should be the Golden Age of Brand Publishing, says Digiday's Neil Chase, where brands use all the digital publishing tools in the box to truly communicate with consumers and build tight bonds. Fact is, many publishers post a lot, but get little in return.

Will webisodes, branded entertainment, apps and 3D TV stand the test of time, or fade away into the sunset? All the way back to Julius Caesar, people have used the thumbs up/thumbs down model to indicate their opinions. Heck, a pair of once-anonymous Chicago film critics essentially started a whole new television genre giving their yea or nay on the films they watched. We like that sort of lightswitch approach, too,

Price' and an emotional connection Unless you've got money to burn, price is a factor in every purchase. And ironically, the cheaper an item is, the more price may be a deciding factor. Consumers may be willing to spend lavishly on home theater equipment, but who wants to pour money down the drain on a bar of soap? That makes a category such as beauty and personal care )BPC( ripe for carefully branded and emotionally connecting advertising experiences, according to Yahoo!

"i" want one! Apple co-founder and marketing genius Steve Jobs passed on to the great central processor in the sky last week, while the Yahoo! Advertising Blog team was at Advertising Week in New York. As you might imagine, Jobs' passing elicited some comments from conference-goers . Weeks before,

UI, API and Desktop will be unavailable for approximately 12 hours This Saturday, October 15, you'll have lots of options for keeping busy: attending your kid's soccer game, watching college football, or, if you're in southern California like us, enjoying some beautiful, summer-like weather. The one thing you won't be able to do is manage your adCenter account, because our friends at Microsoft are doing a tune-up for most of Saturday.

Being a good tweeter can drive traffic to your site Twitter's co-founder Biz Stone told audiences at a conference last year that Twitter handles more than 800 million searches per day . That's 24 billion searches per month. But that number may be inflated, because it includes third-party apps like Seesmic and TweetDeck that allow users to follow a topic, which technically means it does a search every few seconds to keep the topic feed up-to-date.

Agency folks talk about their most cringe-worthy moments at Advertising Week 2011 Sponsored by agency, Organic and Contagious Magazine ; and organized by The Moth, a non-profit group dedicated to the art of storytelling ; Advertising Week last week held a "story slam" )think "poetry slam," but more comprehensible( that let agency creatives tell their most horrific war stories.

Fun and profitable, even if you weren't a math major "Analytics is the application of computer technology, operational research and statistics to solve problems in business and industry." - Wikipedia Our comment: Boring! Actually, "analytics" is sexier than it sounds. In fact, analytics can help you make more money , if used smartly. Yahoo!

There's nothing like the smell of gridiron in the morning We love Southwest Airlines ads during football season, don't you? The creativity, the unmistakable whiff of whimsy, and bags that can fly across the country without having to pay for it. Yahoo! Fantasy Football attracts the most players of any online league, and that's no fantasy, so a Southwest ad front and center on Yahoo!

Microsoft expects technical difficulties to be resolved this evening Microsoft Advertising adCenter is currently experiencing technical difficulties with its log-in function )ads are still serving as normal(. For more details, please visit the adCenter Blog .

CollegeHumor's Sam Stahl on how to get laughs and clicks As vice president of ad sales for CollegeHumor, Sam Stahl deals with a savvy audience that knows when it's being pandered to. And although it isn't just college students who come to the site, this company has learned quite a few things when it comes to catering to those that do. After the original founders sold a controlling interest in College Humor for an estimated $20 million to IAC,