Advertising: A Friend, a Foe, or a Frenemy in Building Healthy Media-Audience Relationships

Media companies are in a battle for audience attention. The media-audience relationship is fickle and media companies must earn the loyalty of their audiences and generate a profit from that loyalty. Content that serves the desired experiences of the audience is the most important ingredient in the relationship. But what about the role of advertising? Some audiences are advertising avoiders and in certain instances they will pay for an ad-free experience. Other audiences are more tolerant. Advertising subsidizes the cost of access to content and in some cases, it can contribute to the overall experience. This chapter provides a conceptual framework to illustrate different advertising scenarios—when advertising enhances the experience, when advertising is neutral, and when advertising is an interruption. When combining different advertising conditions with the financial parameters of advertising marketplaces, media companies can better understand whether ad-supported models are supporting a healthy relationship with its audience.