“Medium” or “mediums” or “media”?

Question

Which one of these would be correct:

(XYZ offers) significantly more visibility than other

• medium
• mediums
• media
• mode (?)

of advertisements.

XYZ is a new method of advertisements, similar to TV, radio, and newspapers. How would you go about comparing it to the other methods(?) of advertisements.

I'm not using media as in "mass communication", but rather as in "medium of instruction" or "medium of travel".

Answer 1

I don't think the usage OP wants is supported by any words in the English Language. About the closest you can get is

(XYZ offers) significantly more visibility than other transmission modes for advertisements.

Or maybe ...than other advertisement vehicles.

XYZ isn't really a new type of 'media' like Radio, TV, Newspapers, etc. - the similarity (as implied by the target sentence), is that - like them - XYZ is capable of delivering adverts. Most likely - unlike them - carrying advertisements is its primary purpose. Mainstream English doesn't have a single word for the semantic category "method of delivering adverts".

There might be a 'trade jargon' term used within the advertising industry - but I'd advise using anything like that with caution; it may have unintended associations (as with pitch, for example).

LATER - I've now realised there's significant scope for uncertainty here because of confusion about the appropriate plural for medium in this context.

I take it for granted OP's XYZ can correctly be defined as an advertising medium, but it's my personal opinion that the correct plural for that meaning is mediums, not media. It's also my personal opinion that whichever plural form were to be used in OP's example, a significant proportion of the target audience would think it should be the other. Therefore I would avoid both.

Answer 2

You probably want to use media there. It refers to all types of mass communication.

You didn't ask the obvious question, about plural forms, but here's a usage note from NOAD as a lagniappe for you:

USAGE The word media comes from the Latin plural of medium. The traditional view is that it should therefore be treated as a plural noun in all its senses in English and be used with a plural rather than a singular verb: : the media have not followed the reports (rather than : has not followed). In practice, in the sense ‘television, radio, the press, and the Internet, collectively,’ media behaves as a collective noun (like staff or clergy, for example), which means that it is now acceptable in standard English for it to take either a singular or a plural verb.

EDIT The OP has edited his question, invalidating some of this response.

Also, I didn't see that there was an end to the sentence: "of advertisements." I thought it ended with "media" ...

So, I wouldn't use any of those, except possibly modes. A better word would be types or kinds.