It’s a constant puzzle – how to advertise, how to reach your audience, and how to translate eyeballs into dollars.

As a young buck growing up in the digital era, I’m what Chris Brogan would call a “digital native”. I walk through Time Square every single day (twice a day) to get to work and get home again. Do you think I could tell you two ads that are there? No. I block them out. Banner ads are as good as white space and billboards are just another shiny object.

How then, do you reach your market?

You innovate. That’s how.

Let’s explore, but first let’s lay down some assumptions:

• Your customers are human.
• Humans are inherently curious.
• Your customers are intelligent.
• More intelligent than you may think (or they may appear).
• You can lead a camel to water, but you can’t make it drink.

How about letting your consumer come to you?

Chances are this will be more effective than shoving copy down their throat.  You’ll get:

• Better conversion rates
• Higher retention rates
• Increased satisfaction
• More evangelists

And the ultimate goal, part of your brand’s family, not a one-off customer.

So how do you achieve this?

A few ideas: Remember that little girl you told not to touch the hot stove? What did she do? She touched it. Pretty effective lesson. She learned for herself out her own innate curiosity.

Let that curiosity run rampant in your customers. With banner ads and billboards, advertisers leave nothing up to the imagination and consumers have no choice whether they are exposed to the advertisement or not.

By developing a model that let’s your consumer control their exposure to advertisements, you’ll not only increase the effectiveness of those advertisements, but you’ll make your market a lot happier.

I’m not going to suggest clear cut ways on how to do this. I just wanted to bring to your attention that this might be something worth consdering. What do you think?