U.S. companies will shell out nearly $200 billion this year on targeted media to focus on narrow but important consumer groups, a new study shows.

This means advertisements and new product campaigns will run on organized events, direct mails, text messages or even product placement in video games, instead of the traditional mass media that suits a wide spectrum of consumers. For instance, a brewery may opt to sponsor a local concert instead of running an advertisement in a national newspaper.

A study by investment group Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), forecasts that spending on so-called targeted media will rise by 7.1 per cent this year, as companies on a tight budget focus on their key customers.

By 2015, targeted media spending is forecasted to increase to $272.5 billion, VSS said.

The narrow audience trend also reflects the companies' leverage of digital communications. Last year, hours spent with mobile media rose to almost 50 per cent.

"Across the board, mobile is going to be a big driver going forward - and will experience outsized growth similar to what Internet delivery and pure play internet experienced over the last five years," said John Suhler, co-founder and general partner of VSS.

Both mobile communications and social media have proven to be strategic communication tools in business. But for private equity firms such as VSS, social media efforts can be frustrating.

"What's happening is that the social media world is going through the same bubble phase as the Internet in the late 1990s," said Suhler.

Just as private equity couldn't afford to take stakes or buy out hot internet companies with skyrocketing valuations in the late 1990s, they are facing similar obstacles in investing in the pricey social media companies of today, he said in a Reuters report.

Suhler created the VSS Communications Industry Forecast in 1987, but delayed its publication this year because of fresh signs of an economic slowdown over the summer.

VSS forecasts that U.S. communications spending would increase 4.1 per cent this year and expand at a 5.5 per cent compound rate through 2015 to $1.4 trillion, outpacing growth in the gross domestic product.

"Everything digital is growing faster than economic growth and faster than overall spending for communications," Suhler said.

He added, "The media sectors that have been slow to adapt have inherently not thought of themselves as being digital have had a hard time."