NEW MEDIA: SPOTLIGHT ON ONLINE AD FORMATS - Is innovation enough to keep ad revenue rising on the net?

Are novelty rich-media ads more or less irritating than banners?

If you've spent even a moderate amount of time on the internet recently, the chances are you've been getting pretty sick of 3. Especially a chunky grey graphic of the numeral inlaid with a constantly mutating spiky splash of colour that constantly glides from one end of the spectrum to the other. Because this online overlay from Hutchison 3G is arguably one of the most in-your-face internet campaigns ever from a mainstream advertiser.

Hutchison hasn't been the only advertiser attempting to make a real song and dance on the internet recently. Over the past few weeks - and indeed across the first quarter of this year as a whole - a whole range of advertisers has been using new advertising formats in an uncompromisingly eye-catching way.

They've been using overlays that drift unannounced on to the page and sometimes feature rich-media video streaming. They've been using semi-transparent overlays and attempts at visual witticisms, such as the peel over - the overlay that makes it look as if the corner of the page you've been looking at has flopped forward, revealing an ad lurking behind.

It all seems a bit exciting at first glance - a lot more interesting than dull old banners at any rate. And widespread use of all these new formats coincides with a real surge in online revenues - up at least 40 per cent year on year over the first quarter.

Strangely, perhaps, the industry has seemed rather apologetic about all of this. Let's not get too carried away, some observers seem to be saying.

Perhaps, just perhaps, some of these new formats (especially the way they have been used) are rather flimsy gimmicks. And maybe, by the very intrusiveness of their nature, they are more likely to turn off potential audiences than to push the medium into new heights of both creativity and effectiveness.