Hasta La Creative!

The 1990s mark a watershed moment for the marketing industry. The previous decade brought the widespread adoption of PCs, but it’s the linking of those computersthe growth of the World Wide Webthat lays the groundwork for modern digital marketing. In addition to the Internet, by the end of the decade, the industry adopts a number of tools and capabilities that drive communication as we now know it: email, Flash and popular file formats such as PDF, JPEG and MP3.

It’s also a time of demographic change. Baby boomers are aging and moving to the Sun Belt, the birth rate is declining, and immigrant and U.S.-born minority populations are rising. These trends create new consumer segments for advertisers to target. U.S. ad spending, at $128.6 billion in 1990, jumps to more than $200 billion by 1998.

To reach key audiences, advertisers expand their focus beyond increasingly noisy traditional media venues and talk about “integrated marketing,” reaching consumers with a consistent message across many touch points. They turn to database marketing, interactive media, sales promotion, direct response, PR, viral marketing and market segmentation in an effort to deepen their influence.

Continue reading at AdAge.com