Awards can't feed the hungry. (via, with supporting links)
posted by divabat on Jun 21, 2009 - 17 comments

Dr. Batty's Asthma Cigarettes (not recommended for children under 6) -- and other ads from the era when heroin was an over the counter cough medicine.
posted by empath on Jun 12, 2009 - 39 comments

In other energy drink news, the makers of Samedi have decided that the best way to market a drink named after a famous Vaudou spirit was to let him have his input in the marketing campaign. [more inside]
posted by Burhanistan on Jun 9, 2009 - 47 comments

Beautifully designed, quirky, colorful late 19th-century "artistic" and "gaslight" printing at Dick Sheaff's ephemera pages. [via, via] [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Jun 8, 2009 - 11 comments

If you love 1970s food-related advertising mascots as much as I do, you'll probably love Waffle Whiffer's blog. Loads of old posts on fast food characters, sugar cereal boxes, and even pogs! The Waffle Whiffer's flickr stream is a similar treasure trove of goodies with too many worth mentioning. Ok, just one: who knew the Thompson Twins had such great iconography (and why did they do a deal with Cap'n Crunch?)?
posted by mathowie on Jun 8, 2009 - 14 comments

Tony Scott has confirmed that a prequel to Alien is in the works, with commercial director Carl Rinsch at the helm. Of course, his brother Ridley was no stranger to advertising. Meanwhile Dark Horse is celebrating 30 years of the franchise by releasing a new series of Aliens comics.
posted by Artw on May 30, 2009 - 188 comments

"Do you love me? Will you answer this all absorbing question the next time we meet? Will you utter that winsome "Yes" fraught with all the golden dreams of heavenly realms, or will you pronounce the dread "No" and consign my soul to darkness and despair?" Advertising for Love, a collection of funny, strange, poignant and bizarre personal ads from nineteenth-century American newspapers.
posted by verstegan on May 29, 2009 - 10 comments

The Red House sells black and white people furniture (youtube). (via bookofjoe)
posted by alms on May 22, 2009 - 29 comments

"The BNP represents Britain's workers? They don't even represent basic British craftsmanship" - a response to the recent political broadcast by the UKs far right extremists the BNP, who are currently trying to exploit expenses scandals hiting the larger parties. Weirdly despite demanding British jobs for British workers their advertising uses American models.
posted by Artw on May 18, 2009 - 83 comments

The maker of popular plugin Adblock Plus has issued a proposal for a solution that would allow publishers to unblock their ads in certain circumstances. [more inside]
posted by jbickers on May 11, 2009 - 193 comments

With Rupert Murdoch planning to start charging for access to some of the content of his newspaper's websites is this the end of the age of free? But will it rescue the newspaper industry? Or is the Kindle or other ebook reader the answer? And if free news on the web is unsustainable from advertising what about YouTube, Twitter and Facebook?
posted by fearfulsymmetry on May 10, 2009 - 31 comments

13,500 people singing Hey Jude in London's Trafalgar Square. Thanks T-Mobile! (previously)
posted by The Devil Tesla on May 3, 2009 - 99 comments

Moody's Collectibles sells vintage postcards, but they also make available a huge catalogue of their stock. You can browse geographically by US State, by country, and by topic. Or, you can search for anything from alligators to the California Zephyr. They also have a blog. [more inside]
posted by Rumple on Apr 26, 2009 - 8 comments

Scrabble put these out for their 60th anniversary. [more inside]
posted by gman on Apr 24, 2009 - 32 comments

Ok, it's an advert but it's a 'directed by Chris Cunningham' advert... [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Apr 16, 2009 - 32 comments

Magpie wants to roost in your twitter feed. (via Jon Lebkowsky , who has an opinion)
posted by Pants! on Apr 11, 2009 - 40 comments

The creators of the subservient chicken look back on how it all came to be. As seen on MetaFilter 5 years ago today.
posted by billyfleetwood on Apr 7, 2009 - 33 comments

The US Food and Drug Administration started regulating the labeling of food, beverages, and medicines after the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, and added food coloring and cosmetics with the 1938 Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. They have just released a new website, the FDA Notices of Judgment Collection, 1906-1963, containing data from thousands of cases of mislabeled or misadvertised products and drugs, available in multiple forms (text, PDF, metadata XML, .TIF image, etc.), with searchable archives. Poking around in the data will yield information on cases ranging from misbranding methamphetamine tablets, to quack "Film-O-Sonic" devices, to bacteria-laden unproven abortifacients sold over the counter, to purported "4-way" cures for baldness, to hunks of radium sold for putting in your drinking water to "stimulate the sex organs" (judged against for stating an unproven use, not for actual danger of product). Organized by the FDA's history office, the new database is a fascinating resource for historians, public safety advocates, researchers, and librarians.
posted by Asparagirl on Apr 6, 2009 - 28 comments

ASIAN DRILLPOP! Lurid junk culture artifacts from Japan, Korea, Thailand and India. Mostly not safe for work. [more inside]
posted by ardgedee on Mar 19, 2009 - 30 comments

Muppets' Exclusive La Choy Fire Breathing Dragon! While on the road to success, Jim Henson's creations were used in the advertising world. The La Choy pitch is a great insight into the workshop's early genius. [more inside]
posted by Frasermoo on Mar 19, 2009 - 28 comments

Commercial artists have always had it tough, and photographers are no exception. Magazines are folding. Advertising is down. And to make things worse, this week large companies like Omnicom and GM shifted the financial burden to the artist. Some say production insurance, commonly used in film, is the answer. Others recommend fighting the already bad contracts by demanding payment before usage rights are released. Of course, if things go wrong you can always file for bankruptcy.
posted by infinitefloatingbrains on Mar 19, 2009 - 56 comments

Sci Fi has a new name. Now it's SyFy. The Sci Fi Channel is distancing itself from its geek demographic by rebranding its network. The former SyFy Portal website (a nerd news outlet) has been rebranded "Airlock Alpha" after selling the name to an "undisclosed recipient".
posted by crossoverman on Mar 16, 2009 - 257 comments

"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves." Also: male gaze on the Gender Ads Project. Laura Mulvey's original 1975 essay on Male Gaze in cinema.
posted by Optimus Chyme on Mar 12, 2009 - 248 comments

A startup is proposing a new model for harnessing the power of the web for activism that gets results: bite sized actions, under written by corporate sponsors.
posted by Bango Skank on Mar 3, 2009 - 37 comments

From the 70s version of a bad hair day to disco chart-toppers leaping out of cassette tape boxes to three-legged celebrities who are currently in jail to... well, you just gotta see this one, the Advertising Sillyness from the Seventies flickr group has the groovy images you'll recall (or may want to forget) if you were around in those halcyon days. [more inside]
posted by flapjax at midnite on Feb 21, 2009 - 37 comments

How to use cute animals in advertising (SLYT, via Neatorama)
posted by lizbunny on Feb 19, 2009 - 18 comments

This site examines the cross-cultural trend of headset-wearing customer support representatives on corporate websites! [more inside]
posted by exlotuseater on Feb 18, 2009 - 28 comments

The Visual Telling of Stories
A lyrical encyclopedia of visual propositions;
a visually orientated taxonomy of the ways in which pictures are used to tell stories. [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Feb 18, 2009 - 5 comments

And you thought Pepsi's redesign was just crappy. Well no. According to this ridiculous internal document (6MB, PDF), apparently leaked from their ad agency, the sugar-water's rebranding was 5,000 years in the making, and molded by the same elemental forces that shape the very cosmos.
Warning: Hilariously meaningless corporate drivel inside. [via]
posted by Silky Slim on Feb 9, 2009 - 179 comments

It's time to get ready for the Super Bowl... Ads! Adland has freely available archives of 37 years of commercials from the big game, over 2,800 ads - from 1969, when Winston, Salem, Camel, Tareyton, Pall Mall, and Silva Thins smoked up the Bowl *cough-cough*, all the way to 2008, when the best-liked ad was Bud's dalmation inspiration (how do we know it was best liked? SCIENCE!). Some highlights of the collection include: [more inside]
posted by taz on Jan 29, 2009 - 40 comments

The 'T-Mobile Dance' at London's Liverpool Street Station (January 15, 2009). [more inside]
posted by ericb on Jan 21, 2009 - 39 comments

David Goo and the Variety Band have been gigging in London for a few years, but a recent appearance as a soundtrack to an advert could be what propels them to the big time. Merging ska, punk, indie and klezmer influences, read an interview with them here as they speculate on the concept of 'selling out'
posted by muggsy1079 on Jan 21, 2009 - 9 comments

A shocking scene from the season premiere of Battlestar Galactica was paired with a rather unfortunate commercial. Warning: Big spoiler in the scene if you follow the show and have not caught up. Graphic violence. [more inside]
posted by furiousxgeorge on Jan 18, 2009 - 262 comments

Just imagine! Coming Super-Attractions features vintage DC comics in-house advertisements spanning the decades. Enjoy!
posted by kimota on Jan 13, 2009 - 4 comments

Burger King's (CP+B's) advertising campaigns have been featured on the blue before. But this one takes the cake burger friendship.
posted by jckll on Jan 9, 2009 - 86 comments

Clever and Creative Billboard Advertising. [via]
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse on Jan 8, 2009 - 13 comments

Ever spend a few moments during the day idly mucking about with your cellphone? You're part of a new trend known as micro-boredom - which now presents "a significant opportunity for a publisher to exploit readership and advertising consumption". Get away from the bombardment of advertising and find some sacred space, or just turn off the phone.
posted by divabat on Dec 30, 2008 - 30 comments

A glance will show / Why Phoebe Snow / Prefers this route / To Buffalo.
And Phoebe's right / No route is quite / As short as Road / of Anthracite.

In 1908 the Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad began work on the New Jersey Cut-Off to make its New York to Buffalo mainline (the Road of Anthracite so liked by Phoebe Snow) even shorter and faster. It was to have no grade crossings, and was to be as straight and level as possible — through hilly terrain. The 28-mile Lackawanna Cut-Off, as it is now known, was built over three years, cost $11 million, and was an engineering marvel of massive reinforced concrete bridges, enormous cuts, and the largest railroad embankment in the world. All of this has been abandoned for years, though there are plans afoot to restore the Cut-Off for commuter rail. [more inside]
posted by parudox on Dec 24, 2008 - 17 comments

Just in time for Christmas, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity brings you the Clean Coal Carolers! Their repertoire includes such classics as Frosty the Coal Man, Deck the Halls (with Clean Coal), Clean Coal Night, and Oh Technology. Of course, the Scrooge-like bosses of the ACCCE, suffering from an incredible lack of Christmas spirit, took the Carolers off their website only a couple of days after they were posted — but thanks to the magic of YouTube, you can still revel in the festive sounds of the season. [more inside]
posted by Johnny Assay on Dec 15, 2008 - 19 comments

The second episode of the current series of Charlie Brooker's Screenwipe is a special on television advertising (1, 2, 3) (possible NSFW - swearing and nipples) or as George Orwell put it: "The rattling of a stick inside a swill bucket." [more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Nov 27, 2008 - 26 comments

"The way all of these objects interact and just miss each other in the same environment, it's kind of building a machine out of organic movements." A timesculpture is part music video, part performance art, part kinetic sculpture, and part innovative use of computer and video technology. Its first application? Advertising, of course. [more inside]
posted by [user was fined for this post] on Nov 19, 2008 - 28 comments

Want to sell your pain reliever to mothers? Rule #1: Don't make an ad that pisses off the "Mommy Bloggers". Twitter is currently "Motrin Moms" central- but that's not good news for Motrin.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Nov 16, 2008 - 119 comments

A complete archive of French magazine L'Officiel de la Mode, from 1921 to 2008. It's a treasure trove for fans of fashion, photography, advertising and design. [more inside]
posted by jack_mo on Nov 14, 2008 - 16 comments

The Evolution of Pabst Blue Ribbon Advertising
posted by jsonic on Nov 7, 2008 - 82 comments

The Subway Sun and The Elevated Express &reswere posters used to inform passengers travelling on the IRT. A couple that tickled my fancy - the unlikely to happen Sociability Limit and an Obnoxious Custom. [via]
posted by tellurian on Nov 5, 2008 - 15 comments

Lovely Package: The leading source for the very best that package design has to offer.
posted by chunking express on Oct 30, 2008 - 28 comments

From The Atlantic, a fun bunch of montages of interesting people answering questions like "What is the cost of being a nerd?", "When is evil cool?" and "Are good books bad for you?" (Accompanies a redesign of magazine as well as of the web site. In seeking readers and advertisers, publications like The Atlantic and The Economist, known as thought-leader magazines, have long tried to make up in cleverness what they lack in wallet power.)
posted by Non Prosequitur on Oct 25, 2008 - 27 comments

"You aren't in as much control as you think you are." Buyology by Martin Lindstrom. Cigarette Health Warnings Stimulate Smoking. Subconscious Encounters: How Brand Exposure Affects Your Choices . A sign is anything that can be used to tell a lie. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Oct 23, 2008 - 27 comments

gay advertising
posted by serazin on Oct 22, 2008 - 58 comments

“There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The Atheist Bus Campaign rolls out today in London.
posted by plexi on Oct 21, 2008 - 273 comments