I love you, advertising

We all have an idea of what good advertising is. My idea of good advertising is not necessarily identical to your idea or to his idea, or to her idea. Nevertheless, you probably agree that a good ad should catch your attention; otherwise you don’t even notice it. Then it has to advertise something you are or might be interested in (this is targeting: you don’t advertise pet food to somebody who hates pets, do you?).

This is an example of creativity and attention catching (without embarrasing pop-ups or huge banners wandering around the screen, preventing you from reading the content) when it comes to online advertising:

A couple of days ago, while reading one of my favourite blogs, I noticed an ad with the headline “I love Darren Rowse”.

I thought it was a cool love statement. As I moved on, to another blog I regularly watch, there was this ad, now with the headline “I love Steve Pavlina”. Now I was sure it’s a cool advertising strategy.

Both ads were the same format, running as part of Google Adsense, and they were signed by John Chow, whose blog is another favourite of mine.

If I did not know what John’s blog was about, I would have wanted to see it, for sure.
What do you think: wouldn’t you be curious to read the blog of somebody who shows his love for people in such a creative and targeted way?