From flight deals to restaurants, hotel offerings to detox regiments, banner ads are supposed to be a representation of your interests and searches.

It can also make things rather embarrassing for people, such as when a journalist here at Idealog did extensive research on the online escort industry (ahem) for a feature article. Subsequent banner ads started popping up filled with some, uh, “naughty” bits at work.

Called “behavioural retargeting technology” (yes, you heard right), they’re not only there to solicit you into a deal, but also create revenue for the website they’re hosted on.

However, for most of us on the internet, banner ads are a thing of the past with the rise of browser extensions such as Adblock. They also have the unfortunate effect of blocking revenue for sites dependent on ads.

Here at Idealog, we have a rule of not allowing Adblock, and we tolerate the ad’s existence, but what if there was someway around it?

Proximity Russia, a part of international advertisement agency BBDO, has teamed up with Post-it® to create a solution for banner ads. Using cookies and scripts, the banner ads can be changed into sticky notes and to-do lists.

For the time being, this function is only available on Russian websites, but if the response is positive it has the potential to go global.

We think this is a great idea, but take a look and let us know if you think the same.