Major moves will grow our audience, deepen consumer engagement, and create options for advertisers

In case you missed it, Monday was a big news day for Yahoo!. In the morning, we announced an agreement to acquire Tumblr, one of the world’s fastest-growing media networks. In the afternoon, we announced major updates to Flickr, the world’s leading photo site (see video below). Those are two major strides forward in our continuing effort to make our daily online experiences more engaging for consumers and provide more opportunities for marketers.

Here’s a look at both big stories:

Tumblr: With more than 300 million unique visitors a month and 120,000 signups every day, Tumblr brings us a huge new audience of content creators, curators, and users of all ages. Plus, more than half of Tumblr’s audience uses its mobile app. Bringing together Tumblr and Yahoo! is expected to grow our audience by 50 percent to more than a billion monthly visitors and to grow traffic by about 20 percent.

The acquisition offers opportunities for both partners. Tumblr can leverage our personalization technology and search infrastructure to help its users discover creators, bloggers, and content they’ll love. In turn, Tumbler brings 50 billion blog posts (and 75 million more each day) to our media network and search experiences. We’ll work together to create advertising opportunities that are seamless and enhance our users’ experiences. Tumblr will be independently operated as a separate business with its current CEO, David Karp, at the helm.

Your competitors are growing by double digits. Here’s why you can outpace them.

It’s good to have a goal, and this week’s infographic lays out a big one for online businesses: Grow revenue by at least 15% this year, or risk losing market share. It also shares insights from ecommerce studies and forecasts that show why that 15% goal is within your reach.

Here are some highlights:

• ecommerce is outperforming brick-and-mortar: It’s taken nearly $6 billion in revenue away from physical stores in the past year.
• Some products are blowing up: Digital content/subscriptions and consumer electronics grew 26% and 19% respectively YoY. Apparel and accessories grew a healthy 17%, further evidence of how traditionally brick-and-mortar shopping activities are moving to the Web.
• Marketing on key dates can make a big difference: Online campaigns that target key shopping dates, such as Thanksgiving or Cyber Monday, can boost revenue by up to 70%.

Get more insights from the full infographic after the jump.

51% of mobile users play games on their devices; digital video ad spend to double in next four years; advertisers and agencies will increase budgets for audience-targeting solutions

In the world of digital advertising, if you turn away for a second, you might miss the next big thing. To help you keep you up to date on the news you need to know, every week we’ll bring you ad stories you might have missed, but can't afford to ignore.

More than half of mobile users play games

Web browsing and email may be the top two activities for mobile users, but a new survey by CouponCabin.com finds that 51% of mobile device owners play games. And they play them a lot. The survey of more than 2,000 U.S. adults age 18 and older found that:

• 11% play more than once a day
• 21% play at last once a day
• 41% play once a week

Bold ad offers wealth of features including videos, galleries, social sharing, and a Jazz Age avatar creator to draw viewers into the film

The latest film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby” is a lavish production that’s typical of director Baz Luhrmann’s style ("Romeo + Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge!"). Everything Luhrmann does has a distinct visual flair, so it’s fitting that Warner Brothers went big and flashy with a full-page custom takeover on the Yahoo.com homepage that puts the “rich” in rich media.

To get viewers hooked on the tale of Jazz Age excess and disillusionment, the ad offers a wealth of engaging features, including videos, galleries, an abundance of behind-the-scenes content, and even a cool avatar creator that lets you outfit yourself in fine Gatsby-era style.

Here’s how it works.

Stop straining to come up with new ad ideas. Just choose from this list of six.

Advertising creatives spend all their time trying to come up with ideas that have never been done before, but some ad experts think there may be a limited supply. For example, a recent Ad Week panel explored the theory that there are only seven types of stories used in everything from movies to ads (the quest, rags to riches, etc.).  Our own David T. Jones, a veteran ad creative himself, believes there are only six types of ads.

Of course, the real challenge is finding the type of ad and story that best fits your brand, and then bringing them to life with consummate skill and creativity. But that’s another cartoon.

Check out the full cartoon after the jump.

86% of U.S. consumers plan to travel this summer. Here’s a look at their habits and preferences.

Warm weather is finally here, and consumers are already starting to book their summer trips. Savvy marketers are fine-tuning their summer display, mobile, and search travel campaigns now, and with good reason. Buoyed by a rising economy, spending on summer travel is forecast to increase this year, according to a recent survey of U.S. consumers by TripAdvisor:

• 86% plan to travel this summer, a 7% increase from last year
• 25% expect to spend more than they did last year; 53% will spend the same
• 71% would book a trip on the spur of the moment if they see a last-minute deal

Here are some insights into the spending habits of this year’s summer travelers, and how they’re using multiple screens to plan and book their vacations.

Submit and vote for SEM questions to be answered at our wide-open webinar on June 25

On June 25, we’re presenting the “Ask Me Anything” search webinar, which puts the audience in charge of what will be discussed. That’s right, there are no prepackaged scripts or PowerPoint presentations. All content in the webinar will be based on questions that you andother advertisers submit to our webinar forum and vote on before the event. The winning questions will be answered by Chris Sanger, Senior Director of Global Search Product Management at Yahoo!

Want to know more about the latest search ad formats and platform enhancements? Best SEM practices? Tips on how to increase efficiency and build your ROI? Here’s your chance to ask our search expert whatever you want. Here’s how the webinar works:

• Register now for our webinar
• Join the “Ask Me Anything” Forum, where you can easily submit and vote on questions. Bookmark the site to keep submitting questions and vote on others’ submissions until June 25.
• Attend the June 25 webinar to hear Chris tackle the most popular questions live.

Ad execs talk about how cutting-edge fashion brands are tailoring technology to fit their marketing plans in exciting new ways

Editor's Note: Once again, we gather some ad agency friends around the virtual water cooler to get their answers to a burning industry question. This time we asked them, “What can brands and advertisers learn from the world of fashion marketing?”

Julie Michael, Executive Director, Team One

Fashion is about interesting details. The best brands pay attention to the details, and they care about creating and telling the stories behind those details. Burberry and LVMH are brands that often get it right. Their heritage is a big piece of their craftsmanship story, but that story continues to get expressed in modern, digital, and useful ways. The secret sauce is to always pair fashion with function. A marketing effort that serves a useful purpose, tells an interesting story, or meets an unmet need will win every time over a purely visual exercise—which proves, once again, that beauty is more than skin deep.

Carolyn Hadlock, Partner/ Executive Creative Director, Young & Laramore

It's difficult to separate fashion from branding, because fashion defines culture, and that's where advertising looks for inspiration. In rare cases, culture influences fashion. For example, take the Gatsby collection that was just released this week from Tiffany. The hotly anticipated summer blockbuster gave the Tiffany brand a lift through earned and social media. Fashion is even infusing the utility/work brand Carhartt with its new Carhartt WIP line that just opened its flagship store in New York. I think that brands that fit in lifestyle or enthusiast categories should have a stylist on staff to help track and leverage fashion for their brands.