Yesterday, as I walked into work with our creative director, my attention was brought to a pile of phone books lying on the ground beneath our mailbox. Darren, our CD, noted that they were for our office complex to use, but that they had been sitting there for about a year. A YEAR!

The nearly untouched pile of phone books got our minds turning. How long ago was it that EVERYONE wanted a spot in the Yellow Pages? It was one of the best tools to use in any print campaign.

We don’t mean to continually beat it into the ground, but times are changing. Web 2.0 is happening. It’s no longer the way of the future. Need a number? Google it. Need to find a company? Google it. Advertisers need to step up and embrace new mediums to really meet their customers.

We also don’t mean for you or your company to jump the metaphorical traditional advertising ship. Not at all. Print media is still relevant and can have a place in an advertising campaign. We’re just saying that it can’t be the only weapon in your arsenal. And more than anything, we believe in integration: using the right tools for the right audience, mixing necessary mediums.

So if you are one of those people or companies that is stuck in that traditional mindset of only using print advertising, you better step up your game and embrace new ways of communication. Because if you don’t, you’ll get left behind, just like the pile of untouched phone books sitting on the cold, hard ground outside of our office.

Ever see the advertisements on steps at a DC Metro Station? What about advertisements on the fronts of elevator doors? Non-traditional, out-of-home media such as the ones on steps and elevators doors are called “ambient media.” The above examples are only two examples of ambient media. If you look at the slide show below, you’ll see some of the most attention-grabbing, highly creative examples of ambient media.

When you have a product or service that really needs some attention, and newspaper, TV and online ads just aren’t going to cut it–ambient media may be the answer.  Sometimes all it takes is a few imaginative displays in a high-traffic areas to get some buzz. Seriously, could anyone actually ignore this giant BBC microphone?