Advertising

Advertising is paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Variations include publicity, public relations, product placement, sponsorship, underwriting, and sales promotion. Every major medium is used to deliver these messages: television, radio, movies, magazines, newspapers, the internet, and billboards. Advertisements can also be seen on the seats of grocery carts, on the walls of an airport walkway, and the sides of buses, or heard in telephone hold messages or in-store PA systems – nearly anywhere a visual or audible communication can be placed.
Advertising clients are predominantly, but not exclusively, for-profit corporations seeking to increase demand for their products or services. Other organizations that frequently spend large sums of money on advertising include political campaigns, interest groups, religion-supporting organizations, and the military of the United States. Other non-profit organizations are not typical advertising clients, and rely upon free channels, such as public service announcements.
The advertising industry is large and growing. In the United States alone in 2005, spending on advertising reached $144.32 billion, reported TNS Media Intelligence. That same year, according to a report titled Global Entertainment and Media Outlook: 2006-2010 issued by global accounting firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, worldwide advertising spending was $385 billion. The accounting firm's report projected that worldwide ad spending would exceed half-a-trillion dollars by 2010