Find out why Donnie had sent him the grand ad message, then calm each other down.

Just as paid ad messages are appearing more frequently in those alternative media, Mr. Hedrick said, so, too, are unpaid ads.

It takes a reasonable number of exposures to gain total readership and total penetration of the ad message.

It is used in marketing as a benchmark to calculate the relative cost of an advertising campaign or an ad message in a given medium.

Its incessant ad message was the same: "Kids!

The ad message: redrawing district lines would elect anti-environmentalists who in turn would murder the cuddly innocents.

Geotargeting ad messages to specific locations can help businesses reach ideal customers and avoid wasted impressions.

One is to assemble "cross-media" packages that combine ad messages in the various outlets owned by a single company.

"If the ad message is more relevant, not just to the programming but to the viewer's mind-set, there's a greater receptivity," Mr. Hanlon said.

As a result, "the ad messages are not going to be as effective," she said, particularly when it comes to consumers in the so-called Generation Y market segment.