Get a smiley face for your campaign with these Yahoo! best practices To students, "back to school" sounds like a prison sentence. To online advertisers, it means big business, because back-to-school is the second-largest consumer spending event in the U.S., ranking only behind the winter holidays. Here are five tips gleaned from Yahoo!'s Search Retail Account Team to help advertisers get the most out of their back-to-school campaigns. 1.

Brazilian video goes viral with trippy humor and cloying song Do you want a pickup powered by horses or ponies? That's the burning question posed in a commercial for Nissan Brazil )by Lew'Lara\TBWA of Sao Paulo(, a weird mash of macho off-roading scenes, Saturday morning cartoon animation and a catchy, saccharine theme song that worms into your brain like an earwig . It may feel like a flashback, but its trippy humor crosses all borders, as evidenced by its more than 6.

How, where and why do you buy ads? Learn the ropes in this free Yahoo! webinar Media buying is one of the trickiest yet most exciting parts of the marketing business. And it's a role that often goes unsung. But at Yahoo! we understand what media buyers are up against every day. That's why we put this free webinar together. In 30 minutes or so, you'll learn much more about the media-buying process, from audience analysis to optimization. What: Yahoo!

Higher-performance, more relevant impressions Yesterday, our friends from Microsoft adCenter announced a significant enhancement designed to deliver higher-performing and more relevant impressions and clicks to advertisers. For all the deets, click over to the Microsoft adCenter blog .

How to provide "BPC" shoppers what they want Beauty and personal care shoppers aren't getting what they want when they're conducting research on their mobile devices, but advertisers have the chance to provide exactly what this highly ad-engaged audience is asking for. In a study released last year by Yahoo! and Nielsen , consumers revealed how they are using their mobile devices when researching in the beauty and personal care )BPC( category.

News you can use but not abuse Yahoo! gets to the C.O.R.E of the matter : What's the sound of one billion clicks ? Better than just "click-click-click-click'," we can tell you. Yahoo!'s homepage now averages 1 billion clicks and more in the U.S. alone every month. That's thanks in large part to a suite of technologies we call C.O.R.E. )Content Optimization and Relevance Engine(. See Yodel Anecdotal for more.

Yahoo!'s Andy Cotten says our comprehensive tools let small advertisers dive deep Big, splashy advertisers aren't the only ones who can benefit from Yahoo!'s vast scale, reach and nitty-gritty targeting. In fact, the tools that major advertisers enjoy are also available on the regional and local level-and more. "We service global advertisers, national advertisers and regional advertisers-down to the local advertiser," says Yahoo!

Get the buzz on all the words Have you ever wondered " Why Business People Speak Like Idiots ?" Had difficulty " Understanding American Business Jargon ?" Needed a " Dictionary of Corporate BS ?" Been troubled by ATAs )annoying three-letter acronyms(? Laughed at the random buzzword generator ? You're not alone. Digital advertising has an argot, if you will, all its own. Well, we're Yahoo!, and we're here to help.

One brand's experiment in trust I once had a crap job in a warehouse in the San Fernando Valley. Every week, a man would come in with a cardboard box full of goodies - Snickers, Lay's Potato Chips, cheese-and-cracker snack packets and so forth. It was called the "honor store" and each time you took a snack, you were supposed drop in the "requested" amount of change. How the poor sap delivering these boxes made any money I'm not sure.

For the Internet generation it's better to be useful than shocking, says Mullen's Edward Boches Thanks to user-generated video and, well, basically any search engine, practically everything users want is at their fingertips. Because of that, they've seen it all. Kind of makes it tough for the advertising profession to shock its audience-a common device Madison Avenue has looked to over the years. Edward Boches, chief innovation officer of Boston-based Mullen,

Lessons from the premier digital media company Yahoo! has the #1 internet property in 13 categories in the U.S. and 10 categories globally. In 2010, Yahoo! served an average of 13 billion ad impressions worldwide- per day . How do we do it? And where are we taking it from here to better serve the needs of both our users and our advertisers? Find out in this free, one-hour webinar. What: "The Yahoo! Story" webinar When: Tuesday, July 26, 2011, starting at 11:00 a.m.

Reality shows that there's no quick fix for homelessness Spoiler alert! There's an obnoxious new makeover show on TV, and its surprise twist is better than anything that M. Night Shyamalan has written in awhile. "Quick Fix" has all the trappings of a niche cable channel style show. There are the requisite over-caffeinated hosts )the Rachel Zoe-esque Gwen and her gay, blonde, Asian, denim-and-madras-clad BFF, Maxi(,

Also: Internet TV takeover; seven ways to retarget audiences; and the latest smartphone hijinks Millennials )aka Generation Y( are under 30, were raised on cable TV and video games , and can't imagine a life without the Internet. Today, they're one of most valued but elusive consumer markets. MTV's Nick Shore, senior VP of strategic consumer insights and research,

Advertising news that "bytes" back JetBlue 1; Carmageddon 0: The "-armaggeddon" part of L.A.'s " Carmageddon " may not have worked out to the sensation-hungry media's liking, but the hype seems to have worked out for JetBlue. Spotting a unique brand awarenes s opportunity, JetBlue offered $4 flights from Bob Hope Airport in Burbank to Long Beach , a distance of just 34 miles. The airline may not have made their nut, but it did make beaucoup press.

Combining PC with mobile advertising helps take a leading automaker down the road to success, a new Yahoo! case study shows What is the ratio of online advertising to mobile advertising that drives the best results? This was the key question that Yahoo! tackled with one of its advertisers, a major automaker, in a 2010 cross-media study. For various marketing objectives, the testing measured the effectiveness of ads displayed on a PC, on mobile devices,

Also: Take Data Signals from Baseball; Protect Yourself from "Brandjackers" You built it, but they're not coming . It's not enough to build a terrific online destination with rich content, gorgeous graphics and a sharp SEO plan. To generate traffic, says Derek Gordon of Mediapost , go where your target audience hangs out and bring 'em back to your place. Five data-driven lessons from baseball. Using statistical analysis known as "sabermetrics,

What does it really mean to be "liked?" Depends on who is doing the liking, says Ad Land cartoonist David Jones Would you rather be "liked" or "followed?" Is is better to be "poked" or "pinged." In this day and age it seems like just about everyone, in the real world as well as in the social media world, has an angle. See the punchline after the jump. David Jones is the creator of Ad Land, the advertising cartoon that has been featured in AdWeek magazine,

Yahoo!'s Alex Linde discusses the new opportunities mobile offers marketers Some 30% of mobile devices sold today are smartphones, notes Yahoo! Director of Mobile Advertising, Alex Linde. That presents a huge opportunity for advertisers as engagement rates on the smartphone are "much, much higher" than on the PC. But it's not about the device, it's about the context. "We see these periods of 'micro-boredom,

Login takeover ad reaches 24 million Americans on Yahoo! in just 24 hours For today's retailer, conveying core brand values like quality and affordability to consumers is critical. By spotlighting an engaging free sample offer on the Yahoo! mail login page, The Home Depot® was able to build strong brand awareness with over 24 million Americans in just 24 hours, significantly increasing both purchase intent and actual conversions on a new line of products.

Yahoo!'s Blake Irving: Tablets help bring traditional TV audiences to digital How do advertisers find traditional TV audiences in a digital medium? On tablet devices, which combine the viewing experience of TV with the measurability of digital, says Yahoo! Chief Product Officer Blake Irving. Irving, interviewed at the Cannes Lions advertising festival last week,