Last summer, I wrote about how Yahoo! hit the airwaves with super-wedgies, projectile motorists, and reincarnated pets to launch the new Yahoo.com. Today, we're upping the ante with more bold and quirky ads that you'll catch online, on TV, in a movie theater near you, and on the radio.

We’re launching the most integrated and interactive brand campaign in company history, taking last year’s theme of “life is better with Yahoo!” to the next level. In partnership with our ad team, Soho Square and OgilvyOne Worldwide, we’ve come up with a simple call to action that puts you in charge: drum roll please… “Be a Better ____.” Why should you care? This campaign is essentially all about you and helping you enhance that bit of your life you've always wanted to be better at.

Don’t be afraid of the blank — it’s the best part. Fill it in with whatever you want, as many times as you like. Think big or small. Want to be a better Casanova? A better know-it-all? Better thrill seeker? Better fashionista? Everybody wants to better at something and we think you can find that nirvana on Yahoo!.

While the campaign spans many of our products, it highlights two products in particular: Yahoo! Answers and Yahoo! oneSearch. Using the special-sauce formula that's worked so well in the past (our "Garden" spot won the third funniest commercial title in the U.S. last year), we'll show you how dramatically different life is with and without Yahoo! — absurdly, of course, through man-eating plants, potent herbal enhancers, and spine-straightening laser beams. Check them out here! (Starting this Saturday, you can even mix and match your own endings — stay tuned.)

The television spots will debut tonight on NBC’s “Wedding Crashers,” “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” and “Last Call With Carson Daly” and ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” so wait until tomorrow to “be a better channel hopper.” They'll also air over the next month during other shows on NBC, Fox, ABC, MTV, Comedy Central, fuse, and TBS, with radio spots airing today across major U.S. markets. And if you go to the movies this summer, you'll want to get there before the previews start.

Now for the behind-the-scenes skinny: It took about a week to shoot both TV spots in Southern California. We brilliantly picked the coldest and windiest time of year to be in L.A.'s Griffith Park for the “Explorer” commercial. In fact, we almost had two casualties, as two rather substantial trees came crashing down on the precise location where I'd been standing with SoHo Square managing director Alda Abbracciamento just moments earlier.

For the “Handyman” shoot, we found ourselves in Downey (home of the world's first Taco Bell restaurant) on an empty studio lot that looked like Wisteria Lane with just suburban facades. The most memorable moments came during breaks we had to take between every “Handyman” take to let the actor who played Grandpa take a load off. He often entertained us with toe-tapping harmonica jams. We also had a good time with the visitors who jumped out of hiding (gorillas, clowns, bikini-clad maidens, ninjas) — you'll see them again when you remix your own commercial.

We had a blast pulling this campaign together, and hope you'll enjoy interacting with it. Let us know what you think!

Allen Olivo
Vice President, Global Brand Marketing