Mass media is in flux.  Changing technology and shifting demographics threaten to undermine one-message-fits-all business models.  Fragmented content increasingly  targets niche markets.  And mass media’s advertising base – its largest generator of revenues – is dwindling, disappearing and migrating online.

Advertising, though, is bigger than ever.  In the United States, more money was spent on advertising in 2007 than at any point in history.  This increase in advertising is not driven solely by the Internet, or by mobile technologies.  It’s driven by the emergence of non-traditional forms of advertising during the last 30 years, forms that most advertising research has ignored, until recently.  Forms that many mass media leaders don’t know exist, or don’t know how to capture.

The business model of selling an audience to advertisers isn’t broken.  It’s thriving.  Advertising firms know it.  Media leaders who know it can position their companies to take advantage of growing advertising markets.  This study analyzes the available data and widens the scope of what advertising can mean  both to traditional and developing media companies.  It provides quantitative analyses of traditional advertising approaches and exposes gaps in mass media planning.  Most importantly, this study suggests new ways of thinking about how to sell services and connections, not just products.