Yahoo will debut its long-tested Apex advertising program sometime during the the second half of this year, the company’s top execs told the Interactive Advertising Bureau conference in Phoenix today. The announcement was made during a session with Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and the company’s president Susan Decker (Yang was scheduled, Decker a last-minute add-on), the WSJ reported.  Yahoo Apex, in testing since last summer, promises better coordination between content and advertising. In particular, the company says Apex will allow Yahoo to create unified ad campaigns across search, display, mobile and other formats. Noting the difficulty of achieving that kind of seamlessness among different formats today, Decker said, “Where we are today will look like black-and-white television compared to where we will be in a few years from now.”

Meanwhile, both Yang and Decker avoided too much talk about Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) proposed $44.6 billion takeover of Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO). Yang said that the offer, which the company told Microsoft is too low, has helped focus the company in terms of what sort partnerships and other options it should explore. Decker added that the Microsoft bid “accelerated conversations that were out there”—referring to companies like Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and News Corp (NYSE: NWS). that were already being considered.

-- News.com: Coming a bit sooner than Apex, this week Yahoo is expected to reveal details about its Digg-like news-tracker called Yahoo Buzz. At least that’s what Decker seemed to be hinting at when she told the IAB audience that there will be an announcement “on our home page where we have already been opening it up to third-party publishers...and refreshing it. It allows us to surface the very best content on the web.”