Real Life Ads Most Effective

Although marketing on the web has been a tremendous success for many companies, too many businesses have overlooked the advertising medium right in front of them, focusing only on promoting themselves online.

As Forbes magazine discovered, this could be a huge mistake -- in store advertisements, such as on the back of shopping carts, have proven successful time and again.

"Conventional wisdom, backed by solid if not conclusive research, says that more than 70% of purchase decisions are made in-store. Yet despite that, in-store advertising still represents only 6% of marketing budget allocations," Forbes said.

"It's indisputably intuitive that a message delivered at point-of-purchase has the best chance to influence the desired behavior--getting the consumer to take the product off the shelf."

In my opinion the best ads are still the ones in public washrooms on the stall door. I mean, what else are you going to look at?

If any marketers are reading this, here's an idea I thing is quite extraordinary, but maybe it's just me. To really take advantage of people using the loo, consider putting a pad of paper, branded on top with a company's logo, web address, etc., just like hotel note pads.

Too many times I've forgotten the cool ad I saw in the stall, no matter how hard I tried to memorize the website or company name. Especially after a few drink, it gets difficult. Also, it seems thoughts from the throne are often the best, so having a notepad handy when inspiration hits could prove very successful.

Check out a neat innovation in bathroom advertising: