The death of advertising?

Ken Auletta asks, Do Ads Still Work? It's a good question and much of the data in the article says that ads are getting lost in the tyranny of too much. One memorable quote:

A typical American household today has a choice of more than a hundred TV channels, and the broadcast networks—there are now six of them—attract only about thirty per cent of viewers. Today, it would take a hundred and twenty-five CBS, NBC, or ABC ads to reach the percentage of viewers that three network ads once reached. Rothenberg, who is now a director of Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm, also says, “It’s easier for Toyota to figure out a new way of producing cars than it is for McCann-Erickson to figure out a new way of persuasion.”