Coronavirus: How the advertising industry is changing

The first rule of advertising is that your adverts have to be seen to have any effect.

This is why if you have managed to get out of the house recently in the UK you might have noticed that there are an awful lot of adverts supporting the National Health Service, and key workers on billboards and bus stops.

As Anja Lambrecht, professor of marketing at the London Business School, explains, it is one of the signs that the advertising industry is struggling.

"It is most obvious outdoors with billboards - no-one is driving past them, so no commercial firms are advertising," she says. "That is why they all have adverts for the NHS."

On TV an ever-growing number of us are increasingly watching streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon Prime, which don't have any adverts. Meanwhile on traditional commercial TV channels, there are lots of advertising breaks with very few adverts in them.