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Actress/comedian Molly Shannon is helping Nestlé USA build awareness of its recently launched Skinny Cow Candy line via a new Facebook promotion.

Amazon flew under the radar in late June when it announced it was entering the world of advertising by using its consumer data to deliver targeted advertising on third-party sites across the web, but it's big news for online retailers and advertisers. Amazon will now use its huge supply of data to pool consumers into buckets based on the products they looked at or purchased on the retailer's website. The company will help advertisers reach these consumers with targeted media, using behaviorally targeted display ads to drive them to any URL.

Before you read this story, I'd like you to take a mental leap and imagine that, despite this contrived start, it turns out to be pretty insightful, and important enough to make you want to save it, or maybe even pass it on to a friend or colleague. In the old days, you might have torn it out of this magazine, or made a duplicate on a copier and forwarded it through the postal service.

Navigating the ins and outs of the ad network world can be a large and daunting task. We all wish we could simply launch a campaign and then sit back and watch it triumph effortlessly. Here are five key ways advertisers can get more from working with ad networks.  

Having just announced its phasing in of healthier Happy Meals, McDonald's is making sure nutritional elements are included in its massive, global promotions tying in with the new "The Smurfs" movie. The promotions also tie in an eco-friendly theme.

NBCUniversal's Universal Audience Platform (UAP), an online ad network that launched in July 2010, today announced the creation of a private ad exchange open to select digital advertising agencies. The private exchange will provide clients with direct access to premium display ad inventory that can be targeted at scale across the UAP's vast digital content portfolio. The launch marks the next phase of NBCUniversal's strategy to reduce reliance on third party ad networks, forging stronger partnerships directly between premium content publishers and advertisers.

Two ecommerce ventures catering to pet owners have either launched or received new funding in recent days, leading to some to reach the eyebrow-raising conclusion that online pet food and product stores may be trying for a comeback.

Eager to associate itself with what it sees as the cool crowd-or in the words of the import brand, "independent thinkers"-Beck's has launched the "Green Box Project," an ongoing campaign that has commissioned works from designers, musicians, and other creative professionals, and will showcase them in seven cities across the U.S. and Europe. The twist: Rather than hanging the pieces in traditional galleries, Beck's is presenting them in augmented reality installations-a series of 30 glowing 6.5-foot cubes that viewers must unlock with smartphones in order to "reveal" the work that's hidden inside. Like the brewer's bottle, each box is green.

With the launch of Google+ earlier this week, the advertising industry (with a little coaxing) has begun to suggest how the combination of search and social should play out, from cost models to metrics.