The recession-fueled advertising downturn underlines the urgency of using the Web to glean data and target consumers directly, rather than blasting them with a barrage of TV-style ads, media executives say…

Ed Moran, director of product innovation for Deloitte, said next-generation advertising will be driven by the tastes and habits of 14 to 24 year-old “millennials” whose lives center on social networks and Internet-enabled handsets…

Even actor and media producer Ashton Kutcher chimed in at the conference, saying the billboard-style display ad is already outdated: “People who have grown up on the Internet have trained themselves not to see it.”

Sources