ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the advertising industry in the twenty-first century. Key themes include advertising’s partnerships and power struggles with new kinds of information-communication firms (e.g., Google) and how the internet media marketplace provides advertisers with both threats—for example, audiences blocking advertisements—and opportunities—data-mining, microtargeting, and new strategies of “branded content,” “native advertising,” and “influencer marketing.” This chapter concludes by arguing that a number of boundaries have now blurred, including the line between content and advertising, what precisely defines an “advertising company,” the previously separate territories of advertising and public relations, and even producers versus consumers of advertising.
