The downside from an advertiser's perspective is that with so many messages in the mix, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get people's attention. Also, we're all becoming better at tuning out the bombardment. In some cases we've even been given tools to help us, such as the ?30 second skip' feature on a TIVO, which has the sole purpose of allowing users to jump through commercials and quickly get back to the program.

Fortunately, within the eBay environment these challenges are lessened because when people use the site they are naturally in buying mode. They WANT to buy. That's a huge advantage compared to many other forms of advertising which can be classed as interruptive. However, it's not all plain sailing. More on that in a moment. If you've been a reader of this newsletter for some time, hopefully you're training yourself to look out for examples of how other business owners have managed to stand out from the crowd. Actually it's a fun exercise, and of course the point is to see how you can adapt these ideas to your online or eBay business.

On these two pages you can see some fantastic marketing messages that do an excellent job of standing out from the crowd.

The clever design and placement of the mouth makes for the ultimate 3D ad. We all know that exhaust fumes are polluted and disgusting, so there's a perfect fit with the message about giving up smoking.

This ad for Benjamin Moore paints makes use of the colors in the sky to create an ever changing jumbo color ?swatch'

What's your favorite? I think mine has to be the smoker spewing out polluted smoke fumes on the back of the bus. The other advantage to placing the ad on the bus is that it's constantly moving around town, which means the message will be seen by many more people than a simple static ad. Genius. The ad itself is a brilliant match that dramatically reinforces the message in a way that no written ad ever could.

This innovative ad for a ballet school makes great use of both color and style to instantly say ?ballet' without even reading the text.

All these examples match up well with the fundamental principle of what a renegade eBay seller is about. To maximize your success (and profits) you MUST be different from everyone else.

It's obvious that all these examples were the result of some creative thinking, and the same is true with your eBay business. A good starting point is to consider how you might do the opposite of other sellers in the same niche. For example, if everyone's competing on price, make yours the highest price offering in its class. I guarantee you that you'll get plenty of buyers as long as the (other) important elements of customer service, testimonials, reassurance of customer service etc are in place. But those elements cost you nothing. They just require some creative thinking and the boldness to be different. From now on, don't accept anything less than the renegade approach for your business. Stand up and stand out.