Advertising's Other Half

It's a truism in marketing that 'half of all advertising is wasted'. The observation was made originally in the world of mass media advertising: tv, press etc. So does it apply to new media - search marketing, social networks, pop-ups etc?

It may be too early to tell, but there are some indications that 'wasted advertising' is not confined to old media. Indeed, it may be worse: one AOL study showed that 99% of site users suffer from banner blindness - they literally don't see the ads. It seems we shouldn't write off the old media just yet.