You rarely see an ad that is so good that it would be missed if it was removed. It’s not easy, but if you want to shake things up a little, look at one of the publications you advertise in and think about what it’s missing, then buy space and add it.

My favorite example of this is the PC-Lint “Bug of the Month” ads that ran in Dr. Dobbs and C++ Report. These were essentially the puzzle section of these magazines, and I used to spend time engaging with the ad each month. Solving the puzzle gave you a visceral understanding of what the product did.

You have to be careful. The other way you see this tactic being used is to make fake content that tries to trick the reader into thinking they are reading another article. I never think it’s a good idea to start off a relationship with such a blatant lie.

The better way is to be clearly an ad, but still have compelling content.

Some ideas

1. Puzzles, like PC-Lint did. The trick here is that solving the puzzle should be a little like using the product. Just putting a Sudoku in your ad space probably isn’t going to cut it.
2. Comics. For example: SourceGear ran a serial comic a few years ago.
3. Pure educational content — don’t make it look like the publication, instead make it the text of your first auto-responder. It should deliver value
4. Information. I’d look to Kinvey’s Backend-as-a-Service ecosystem map — I don’t know if they advertise it, but if they did, I would probably tear it out. If it was updated more often, I’d eagerly await the magazine it was in to get an updated copy.

The key is that it should add value to the content it’s delivered in. Hence: the addvertisement.