Interactive advertising is the use of media that allows for active participation to uphold and/or change the viewpoint on purchasing choices of the buyer in an online and offline venue. Interactive advertising can use such formats as the internet, kiosk-based terminals, mobile devices or interactive television. Interactive advertising gives the person doing the marketing the aptitude to capture the interest of the buyer in a person and direct way, facilitating a thoughtful and dimensional dialogue that will influence a potential buyer's purchasing decisions, particularly where e-commerce is involved.

Probably one of the most successful implementations of interactive advertising is known as viral marketing. Viral marketing uses Flash animations, web links, text and images passed along from one user to another as in a chain letter by email. An example of viral marketing is the Subservient Chicken, a Burger King campaign to promote the launch of chicken sandwiches and the ''Have it Your Way” marketing campaign.

The Subservient Chicken features an actor in a chicken suit who will respond to more than 300 commands, provided by the user. If asked do anything offensive, the Chicken shakes its finger at the viewer.

Today, when technology is king and it seems that every week we hear of some new technology to add to our enjoyment, and sometimes our confusion about the world around is, interactive advertising appears to go the other direction. It relies on the concept that the viewer or user plays a part in the activity. The response in the advertisement is based on the action which the customer takes. In one sense, interactive advertising is a way of optimization, or even, perhaps a conditioned response. The reward which the user receives is in seeing the Subservient Chicken perform some interesting or even ridiculous action upon command. One could imagine a viewer spend quite an amount of time trying out various commands and laughing at the antics of the chicken. Probably significantly more time than would be expended watching an advertisement of the traditional type.

It's interesting to note that this is a type of advertising is one which would be difficult to reproduce in any other type of medium. It would work perhaps on a limited scale if an actor or bevy of actors was hired to go to a central location in a city and perform the antics for a few people on a sidewalk or city park. It would not work with radio, television, movie theaters, but with the technology we now have, it is an effective form of advertising, perhaps even the wave of the future.