Are traditional forms of online advertising not bringing the conversion they used to?  Are your banner ads and popup ads not performing as well as they did 5 years ago?  It may be time to start looking at new ways of getting customer's attention.  When the widespread use of pop-up blockers and ad-blocking extensions for today's web browsers, companies big and small are looking for different ways to have their message seen.

ClickZ has a piece on Microsoft's use of floating ads and contests to keep their marketing messages fresh and visible.

To promote its Office Live products, Microsoft has begun using floating ads featuring a guy in a gorilla suit.  Floating ads (as seen here) are one of the newer forms of advertising to appear in volume over recent years.  In addition to the float ads campaign, Microsoft is running a contest to promote its Office Accounting application.  The contest offer includes $100,000 to the best small business idea,  plus infrastructure and use of a NYC storefront for a year.

Here we have but one example of the ways companies are trying to expand their marketing possibilities.  Some of the old advertising mediums just don't work anymore.  That's why I've been pushing mobile advertising… video advertising… search advertising… all of the new emerging forms of media.  Advertising and marketing are fledgling territories in those worlds.

I challenge every company out there who hasn't tried advertising on one of these new mediums to give it a go at least once in 2007.  You don't have to spend a fortune.  Just take a peak and see what happens.  You might be surprised.