The vice president of Media & Marketing Services for MillerCoors talks about sports partnerships, social media trends, and being named 2012 Advertising Woman of the Year

Editor's Note: Whether it's social, retail or radio, every marketing initiative begins with a focus on brand positioning, says Jackie Woodward, vice president of Media & Marketing Services for MillerCoors. The Ad Blog asked Jackie about her company's recent increase in digital marketing spends, using social to drive positive brand conversations, and her advice to young women who want to make an impact in advertising.

Yahoo! Ad Blog: Congratulations on being named the Chicago Advertising Federation's 2012 Advertising Woman of the Year. What does it mean to you to be an industry icon, and what advice do you have for young women who want to make an impact? 

Jackie Woodward: It's humbling to be considered by my peers as a leader in line with many women whom I've admired for a long time.  As for advice:  Acumen, approach, and attitude are the building blocks for great marketers today, both men and women.

Data love, constantly evolving technology, and decompressing poolside

Editor's Note: "Meet a Media Planner" is our ongoing series of Q&As where we find out what's on the minds of media planners at agencies across the country. Today we'd like to introduce Celina Gomes, a media supervisor for The Garage/Team Mazda in Costa Mesa, California. After a five-year career in media planning, Celina joined The Garage team eight months ago, excited to help shape the still relatively new agency. Along with the rest of The Garage crew, Celina's engine revs for one client alone---Mazda.

Yahoo! Ad Blog: What part of your job as a media supervisor makes you feel most satisfied?  

Celina Gomes: Getting to work as a team to put together presentations; being involved in the campaign process from planning to presenting to implementing---and then monitoring it to make sure it's successful. It's great working with different departments to make it all come to life.

I would also definitely say launching the Mazda CX-5 was exciting. It was cool to build the awareness before the launch and then watch it increase during the launch as we built customized programs around it.

Advertising Week lives up to its billing as a one-of-a-kind industry mega-event

With more than 200 events covering everything from nerd digital culture to social-mobile's phenomenal growth, Advertising Week 2012 held Oct. 1-5 in New York City lived up to its self-proclaimed billing as an advertising happening that "transcends standard industry conferences."

It was indeed anything but standard. If you couldn't join the thousands of industry professionals who thronged the streets and venues around Times Square (aka "The Center of the World" in local travel lit), we'll help you catch up with some from our non-standard Advertising Week coverage.

Ken Fuchs, Yahoo! (l), Mark Waller, NFL

More platforms offer more chances to deliver engaging content to fans, says panel at IMG Sports Marketing Symposium

Advertising Week wasn't the only big digital game in New York City this week---the IMG Sports Marketing Symposium drew hundreds of industry professionals to discuss issues and trends in online sports media. Heading the highlight reel was yesterday's session on "Sports Media and Sponsorship in a Cross-Platform World," with an all-star panel of marketing executives from the NFL, IMG, AT&T, State Farm, Optimum Sports and Yahoo!

Here are some key points they quickly agreed on:

• Great content is the key to connecting with sports fans. "It's about engagement, and engagement is about content," said David Abrutyn, senior VP and Global Managing Director, IMG Consulting
• More platforms mean more opportunities to deliver great content to consumers. "Cross-platform marketing isn't an option, it's a core element," said Ken Fuchs, Yahoo! VP, Sports. "You have to be wherever consumers

Fantasy Sports users get a personalized version of a Lowe's ad that scores big for the home improvement retailer

MyLowe's, a program from Lowe's Home Improvement, tracks all your purchases so you can access your product details anytime. Scouting for the ideal venue to promote MyLowe's, the retailer opted for a Yahoo! Fantasy Sports Smart Ads execution, and kicked off a campaign that will last into January 2013.

Ranked first in league standings, Yahoo! Fantasy Sports was a natural first round pick for Lowe's. The Fantasy homepage, as well as the League page, not only feature rich media, but rich media personalized for the user.

Catch up on the latest wave of enhancements available for your Yahoo! Bing Network SEM campaigns

Last month may have marked the end of summer, but it also served as a starting point for loads of new search campaign features. In addition to recently renaming the combined search advertising marketplace of Yahoo!, Bing, and partner sites to the Yahoo! Bing Network, we've released a variety of new enhancements to help advertisers see even greater returns from their search efforts. Here's a quick recap of what's new and what has changed:

Campaign Management Improvements

• Import Campaigns lets you import search campaigns from AdWords in just a few clicks.
• Keyword Destination URLs can now be replaced, by default, with an ad's URL.
• The Ad Preview Tool lets you verify whether or not your ads appear to your targeted audience.
• Cross-Account Search capabilities enable you to search for account data across multiple accounts.
• Exceptions allow you to resolve editorial disapprovals, monitor the progress of ad and keyword review, or easily filter editorial disapprovals, by submitting a request right within your Bing Ads account.

A guide to decoding the hidden meanings behind innocent comments at the office

What do consumers really want?  It's hard to say. Earlier this week, we heard ace marketers on an Advertising Week panel complain that in survey after survey, consumers tell advertisers what they want to hear, not what they really think.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could know what people are really thinking?  (Wait, didn't we see that turn creepy in an old "Twilight Zone" episode?)

Once again, Ad Land comes to the rescue. This week's cartoon shows how to avoid embarrassing situations by understanding the hidden meanings behind seemingly innocent comments.  I, for one, will keep this in my wallet. You probably don't need it. Seriously, you're that sharp.  You should write a book.

Check out David's guide after the jump.

Two info-packed sessions provided great insights on original digital content and sports marketing in a mobile tech world

New York City's in a good mood--- the Yankees won and are headed for post-season drama, predicted thunder storms never appeared, and mobs of Advertising Week attendees continued their relentless pursuit of marketing magic in scads of venues around Times Square.

Highlights below from two great presentations.

Premium Digital Content: Reality or Myth? And the answer is … reality. The question in the Advertising Week session title was answered emphatically by a panel featuring the leading creative, marketing and business minds behind the digital motion picture Cybergeddon, which was launched last week on Yahoo! in 25 countries and 10 languages, with a website and app to boot.

Cybergeddon creator Anthony Zuiker, who also created the global television hit program CSI and all its many spinoffs, repeatedly said that producing this online cyber crime thriller with partners Yahoo! (distribution and promotion) and Norton Symantec (brand sponsor who's featured in the story) offered many benefits over working in TV—specifically, more creative control and less bureaucracy ("bull----"was the word). Plus, he has a crusader's belief in the future of premium digital content.

"I think that five years from now, motion pictures and TV are going to be a novelty," said Zuiker. "The main source of entertainment consumption is shifting to digital devices. One of our main goals with Cybergeddon was to create a blueprint for how to tell stories in that digital future."