ABSTRACT
We are all familiar with television, radio, the Internet, newspapers, or magazines from the consumer’s standpoint. That is, we don’t think twice about looking at a newspaper in the morning, listening to the radio on the way to work, going online during the day to catch up on the news, watching TV when we get home at night, and leafi ng through a magazine in bed before going to sleep. For advertisers, each of those points of contact we make with the medium represents a paid opportunity to communicate with a potential target for their product or service. So, for example, the local car dealer will buy an ad for a Toyota Camry in the daily newspaper in the hope that you will see it in the morning and stop in at the dealership on the way home from work or at the weekend. The First National Bank might purchase an ad on the radio in the morning hours to reach commuters on their way to work to alert them to the bank’s favorable interest rates on savings accounts. And an organic foods company that offers delivery of fresh local foods might buy a keyword so that if someone searches for “organic” and lives in the zip codes served, the company’s ad will appear. When you sit back and relax in the evening to watch television, a wide range of advertisers will pay the TV networks to remind you of their brand of beer, cookies, pet food, or coffee. They do so in the hope that when you next visit the grocery store theirs is the brand you will select. And fi nally, credit card advertisers that pay to be in the printed or digital magazines you look at before you go to sleep will try to persuade you that they will be there when you need it.
