Certain sites, like the Science Blog (a very cool site I stumbled across this morning), have a great knack for serving up relevant, interesting ads that even I, a cynical, professional web user, will click on. Anytime I do click on an ad at a site, it's a telltale sign to me that someone's thought outside of the AdSense/contextual/banner box and gone to lengths to make sure that their website advertising is as important and interesting as their content.
It's tough for many of us in the ad/marketing/seo/sem fields to get new ideas about advertising into our skulls. After all, the success of our current methods is what makes us "professionals" and brings home the bacon (for many). But, a renewed look at how to advertise on the web is, in my opinion, a critical part of expanding the dialogue between publishers and content consumers.
BTW - When I looked at the Science Blog's ad service, I noticed it was being provided by blogads.com - here. It's simple, clever, and the ads are super-targeted. Maybe I'm just a sucker for cool, geeky science paraphenlia and books, but almost every ad they serve was interesting to me - almost like another blog entry in and of itself. I think that's the future of blog advertising - an ad compelling and topically related enough to be a post on the site.
I think that as the web continues to regain it's footing as a viable place to advertise among the blue chippers, the extremely creative "Ogilvy & Mather" types will also find their way into this realm. As competition rachets up the fight for a higher online profile, Madison Avenue will be called upon to apply it's special magic to marketing campaigns, which most often are more polished and more attention-grabbing than anything a code-cruncher can put out (no knock on code-crunchers - I can't do either very well).
I think having fresh blood in any area of business can be a good thing, shaking things up and forcing us to reassess our strategies and tactics. Not to mention just having to admire the talent that goes into an ad so well crafted it grabs your attention and holds it.