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Speaking at the Measuring Media in the Future conference organised by the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising on Tuesday, Professor John Naughton said: "The ball game is over. We're moving from an economic system dominated by push media and moving to a completely different world which is a pull world - where consumers are empowered by digital technology and only get what they want."

That consumers shape markets is a truism, but their influence is probably understated and certainly not fully understood. Eric von Hippel, a professor at the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, argues that a huge swath of innovation can be traced to elite consumers whom he calls lead users. These imaginative and technically adept consumers spot a need and invent a solution, often changing whole industries, from sports to software.

The question haunting Madison Avenue these days is, to paraphrase Sigmund Freud, "What do consumers want?" As changes in demographics and lifestyles accelerate, consumer behavior is becoming increasingly difficult to predict. More people are surfing the Web, fewer are watching the tube. And a many are becoming more skeptical toward advertising in general. As a result, advertising agencies are scrambling to understand and predict consumer behavior, the better to serve their marketer clients. The goal is to identify and forecast trends and patterns before they enter the mainstream and become obvious.

All but two media, outdoor and spot radio, saw increases in spending, led as usual by Hispanic TV, which grew 19.3 percent (see chart below). Outdoor was down 1.6 percent and local radio was off 0.8 percent. Local magazines, cable and national newspapers followed Hispanic TV in the pace of their growth, at 11.9 percent, 8.9 percent and 8.8 percent.

Hoping to avoid a Christmas as blue as the past few, retailers and marketers are experimenting with ambitiously novel ways to woo consumers. Along with traditional trappings like Santa's workshops, decorated store windows and teddy bears as gifts with purchases, shoppers will see an assortment of unconventional campaigns, all intended to encourage the impulse to buy among those bored with or tired of holiday chestnuts (literal and figurative).

Frustrated with the inadequacies in online- measurement data, Web publishers, media buyers and marketers want the two main providers of online data to improve their research methodologies, especially those used to analyze the highly sought after at-work audience.

While some analysts maintain that the downturn in the newspaper industry's classified advertising base is due primarily to sparsely populated help wanted sections, others believe at least part of the decline represents attrition for the print medium as more consumers migrate online.

Nielsen Media Research, whose data shows a puzzling decline in younger males watching broadcast network television since the fall season began, offered a more detailed explanation yesterday for the shift in viewing habits that has vexed the networks, advertisers and agencies.