Mercedes-Benz USA's digital media specialist Beth Lange said the company will shift away from online newspaper ads to "more targeted and efficient" media buys next year to announce its basic models, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The same article called newspaper sites the patent-leather stilettos of the online ad world: reserved for special occasions while networks and exchanges like Advertising.com from AOL and DoubleClick Ad Exchange from Google do the daily duty of a work shoe.

Compared to more saturating bundled media buys, print newspapers alone yield a reduced rate of return on investment, the story stated. In Gujarat at least, the slide in advertising has led to greater efficiency in the development and placement of ads, relying most on what is known as ambient marketing, or ads in unlikely places, India Express today reported.

For example, The McClatchy Company, where online ad revenue rose 3.1 percent over last year, proved the exception among U.S. online newspaper publishers, although its ad revenue growth indeed slowed for the period.