An advertising campaign can have miraculous effects, causing people to feel better about a company and give it more time and money.  Or it can be as effective as burning a pile of cash (on primetime TV, no less).  Luckily for Yahoo, Nielsen data indicates that its "Y!ou" campaign is imitating the first formula.

Jon Gibbs and Barbara Zack wrote on Nielsen Wire, "When we looked at the 4 week average running up to the campaign's launch Yahoo's homepage had about 10.4 minutes of usage per person per week.  The average of the 4 weeks after the campaign saw an increase in time per person of +3%.  Four weeks after that saw an average increase of +7%."

That's not bad.  Perhaps as importantly, the pair also noted, "Yahoo users exposed to the online campaign were 83% more likely to try the new Yahoo services than non-users, and Yahoo users exposed to the TV campaign were 240% more likely to try the new services than non-Yahoo users."

Taken together, those stats are pretty impressive.  Whether they're worth the $100 million price of the "Y!ou" campaign is debatable, of course, but if you mix in some of the comments Carol Bartz made at the UBS Media Conference yesterday, it appears that things really are starting to look up for Yahoo.

We'll put a slight cherry on top by noting that Yahoo's stock has risen 1.1 percent in pre-market trading, as well.

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