In an online survey conducted by Vizu Answers, 56 percent of respondents said they want to eliminate all advertising. According to Al Ries, author of The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, advertising, no matter how clever, funny, dramatic or aesthetically pleasing, is self-serving. You can get better mileage from your PR dollar than you can from your advertising dollar, which is all the more important in today’s challenging economy.

A whopping 72 percent said that they found advertising to be "annoying" or "extremely annoying." Marketers looking to cut through the clutter and get attention would be well advised to focus on the third party credibility offered by a strong PR campaign. 

With "new media" consumption on the rise, it must concern marketers that when asked which medium's ads consumers "go to the most effort to avoid," Internet outpaces all other media, with 36 percent of respondents choosing Web ads as the biggest headache, and 28 percent pointing to TV. 

Consumers are willing to spend money to avoid ads. 42 percent of the survey respondents said that they would pay an extra $20 per month if they could avoid advertising on TV. Popular Internet Security software like Norton has built-in ad blockers, and a simple Google search turns up dozens of free ad-blocking downloads. 

Given this general dislike for ads, it seems that marketers wishing to influence behavior or get attention would be better served by messages that are accepted by consumers, such as news stories, feature articles, blog postings, RSS feeds, etc. As all media become digital, the consumer is more in control than ever. 

Reaching the right customer with the right message becomes paramount. It is less about "banging them over the head" than it is about "letting you into their world."