If you guys think this ad is on to something, you really should see the ads put up in the SomethingAwful Forums (general subforum: http://forums.somethingawful.com/forumdisplay.php?forumid=1 ). The interesting thing is that many (I'd estimate more than half) of the ads are put up by forum members themselves, making for a range of very informal, hilarious, parodic, often obscene ads that play to every stereotype ironically and knowingly, sometimes made shittily with MSPaint.

And where do those ads lead? Usually to a forum thread where members are playing/raiding an MMO together, or discussing a topic of great interest, or selling a service like painting portraits, web hosting, or resume editing (and in one or two cases, to a discussion of a particularly zeal-inspiring anime series).

Some purely parodic examples can be found here:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2332472-A...

And here is the current roster of ads, though many are from external advertisers and hence less funny:

http://forums.somethingawful.com/adlist.php

(Note that "goons" is the moniker for forum members, and many ads target them specifically with "goon discounts" and so on.)

Marketers with an attitude and something of a free hand could take a leaf from them.