Embodiments of the present invention disclose a method, an apparatus and a system for playing a targeted advertisement. An access switch receives an IGMP join packet sent by a user end, snoops the IGMP join packet, and obtains a first mapping relationship; establishes a first multicast forwarding entry according to the first mapping relationship and a pre-saved second mapping relationship between the access port and a virtual local area network of a targeted advertisement user group; and receives an advertisement media stream sent by an access router, and forwards the advertisement media stream to the targeted advertisement user group by using the access port corresponding to the virtual local area network of the targeted advertisement user group according to the first multicast forwarding entry. In this way, the problems that placing precision of a region-targeted advertisement is low and audience rating is poor in the prior art is solved.