Great article, Seth. Thanks for putting it together.

I may have two more formats to add - meta advertising and "oddvertising."

Meta, or "self-aware", advertising lampoons itself while winking to the audience (Joe Isuzu comes to mind). And, oddvertising, which tries to be weird for weird's sake (think Skittles' spots with the elephant beard and hybrid sheep) - taking Dru's disruption method to its hyperbole.

As you mentioned, ad formats are like water colors, and the shades of formats are constantly blended. But I thought these two more recent categories might be relevant, too.

Keep up the good work, Seth! My students enjoy reading your ad reviews.

I also thought of the meta-ad, but I thought of it in a different way, as subversive advertising. Ads that play on your built-in resistance and distaste for ads themselves. The two ads I think of immediately is the already mentioned "Tiny House" Geico ad and Dove's Campaign for Real Beauty. They both play on what we expect an ad to be, but subverts it to our delight. I think that is the 13 format, the subversive ad.

What about the new ads meant especially for DVRs with all kinds of weird stuff and special Internet links you can only see if you watch the ad frame-by-frame, like the Sprite sub-lymon-al spots, or the GE "one-second theater" clips at the end of regular ads, or the KFC ad that had a code for a free sandwich.

Sort of meta meets interactive plus giveaway. I think you have to admire them for coming up with a creative way to battle commercial skipping technology. Better that than attempting to block commercial skipping.

Very interesting article AND observation by sptrapani... "Oddvertising"... "Head-on, apply directly to the forehead. Head-on...."

What an advertising "flyer". Design an add that purposely irritates but leaves no doubt what the product is, has people in the office complaining about how irritating it is AND morphs itself into business middle management... "...Over inventory, remove directly from the bottom line. Over inventory, remove directly form.....etc."

Irritatingly brilliant, and it think, brilliant "oddvertising"