What exactly does one think of when discussing out of the box advertising? Perhaps its the recent anti-smoking commercials where song, dance, and mythical cartoon animals are used to help spread a message. Or, it could possibly be talking urinal cake advertising (don’t believe me? check out – http://www.wizmark.com/). Maybe its even the little messages that you can find on Taco Bell sauce packets – “At night the sporks pick on me” or “You had me at Taco”. And, I guess I should at least mention rickshaw advertising.

While these are all pretty out of the box ideas for getting attention, it is important to remember that when it comes to advertising for our clients, the OOTB ideas don’t always have to be flashy. Sometimes its best to use the simplest of ideas to help mine leads for our clientele. For instance, one could look into designing a print ad with the same look and feel that you might find on a movie poster, and run it in the FYI/Movies section of the major daily for any given market.

A really effective way to find some of these “hidden” OOTB opportunities is to ask the vendors you work with if there is something available that isn’t the norm, and could possibly be used as added value. You never know what you may find, be it banner ads on the publication’s seasonal Fantasy Football website, or perhaps some sort of grassroots style mention on flyers for an upcoming concert – even at the concert.

Its amazing what even the smallest of these ideas can do. Keep in mind that running :60 spots during daytime rotators on TV was considered out of the box at some point, and this has been a very effective lead generator in several of the markets we work in across the nation.

I know that I have written this speaking mainly to the media placement side of things, but I hope that any non-media peeps still reading this far have taken away at least one thing from my little rant – and really, you should check out the talking urinal cakes. “Stop peeing your life away, call the Career University Training Academy. Classes starting now!”