Okay. Here's an example. Say for instance you sell online and you sell the same thing as 10,000 people. Let's pretend it's diamonds. And everyone who sells the diamonds calls them diamonds. But you want to set yourself apart from the pack and so you think to advertise your diamonds as the SUPER DUPER ULTRA HIGH GLOSS EXTRA SHINEY INDESTRUCTIBLE MYSTICAL MAGICAL STONES. You just thought of a way to make your diamonds seem more special, when in reality they are the same exact diamonds as everyone else is selling. And to convey the perception of increased value in your customers' mind, you sell them at a higher price. This is an example of thinking outside the box.
Here's an example. Say you're promoting a hosting company. Instead of bidding on highly competitive hosting keywords via PPC, or trying to rank for them, you approach it a different way.
You decide to target people just getting into web design. Or people who want a simple website and don't want to spend much money. So you build a website about easy web design. You could do joomla or wordpress tutorials, or a brief introduction to Nvu with some free templates for people to download. You show them what they want to know. These people would be a lot cheaper and easier to attract than going directly to the hosting market, yet they'd have the same need for hosting. And you're there to fill it.
It's really about innovation, or approaching a market in a more cost effective manner than everyone else is doing to gain a competitive edge.
My 2 cents.
Yeah, that's good too. There's a guy on ebay who does joomla installs. He charges $5 and makes them sign up through his hosting affiliate. He doesn't do much volume, but that's practically free money right there.