Increasingly, other media are overtaking many of the "traditional"
media such as television, radio and newspaper because of a shift toward
consumer's usage of the Internet for news and music as well as devices
like digital video recorders (DVRs) such as TiVo.
Advertising on
the World Wide Web is a recent phenomenon. Prices of Web-based
advertising space are dependent on the "relevance" of the surrounding
web content and the traffic that the website receives.
Digital
signage is poised to become a major mass media because of its ability
to reach larger audiences for less money. Digital signage also offer
the unique ability to see the target audience where they are reached by
the medium. Technology advances has also made it possible to control
the message on digital signage with much precision, enabling the
messages to be relevant to the target audience at any given time and
location which in turn, gets more response from the advertising.
Digital signage is being successfully employed in supermarkets.[17]
Another successful use of digital signage is in hospitality locations
such as restaurants.[18] and malls.[19]
E-mail advertising is
another recent phenomenon. Unsolicited bulk E-mail advertising is known
as "e-mail spam". Spam has been a problem for email users for many
years.
Some companies have proposed placing messages or
corporate logos on the side of booster rockets and the International
Space Station. Controversy exists on the effectiveness of subliminal
advertising (see mind control), and the pervasiveness of mass messages
(see propaganda).
Unpaid advertising (also called "publicity
advertising"), can provide good exposure at minimal cost. Personal
recommendations ("bring a friend", "sell it"), spreading buzz, or
achieving the feat of equating a brand with a common noun (in the
United States, "Xerox" = "photocopier", "Kleenex" = tissue, "Vaseline"
= petroleum jelly, "Hoover" = vacuum cleaner, "Nintendo" (often used by
those exposed to many video games) = video games, and "Band-Aid" =
adhesive bandage) — these can be seen as the pinnacle of any
advertising campaign. However, some companies oppose the use of their
brand name to label an object. Equating a brand with a common noun also
risks turning that brand into a genericized trademark - turning it into
a generic term which means that its legal protection as a trademark is
lost.
As the mobile phone became a new mass media in 1998 when
the first paid downloadable content appeared on mobile phones in
Finland, it was only a matter of time until mobile advertising
followed, also first launched in Finland in 2000. By 2007 the value of
mobile advertising had reached $2.2 billion and providers such as Admob
delivered billions of mobile ads.
More advanced mobile ads
include banner ads, coupons, Multimedia Messaging Service picture and
video messages, advergames and various engagement marketing campaigns.
A particular feature driving mobile ads is the 2D Barcode, which
replaces the need to do any typing of web addresses, and uses the
camera feature of modern phones to gain immediate access to web
content. 83 percent of Japanese mobile phone users already are active
users of 2D barcodes.
A new form of advertising that is growing
rapidly is social network advertising. It is online advertising with a
focus on social networking sites. This is a relatively immature market,
but it has shown a lot of promise as advertisers are able to take
advantage of the demographic information the user has provided to the
social networking site. Friendertising is a more precise advertising
term in which people are able to direct advertisements toward others
directly using social network service.
From time to time, The CW
Television Network airs short programming breaks called "Content
Wraps," to advertise one company's product during an entire commercial
break. The CW pioneered "content wraps" and some products featured were
Herbal Essences, Crest, Guitar Hero II, CoverGirl, and recently Toyota.
Recently, there appeared a new promotion concept, "ARvertising", advertising on Augmented Reality technology.