Advertising

Picturesque America (1909)

After recently reading about how devoid the paleo-future is of advertising I thought it’d be a good time to pull out a cartoon Harry Grant Dart drew for a 1909 issue of Life magazine. This image can be found in the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Collection. See also: Futuristic Air Travel (circa 1900)

Tech News Matt Novak Jul 26

Future Newspapers Written by Advertisers (1912)

The August 10, 1912 Chicago Defender contained this blurb about journalism of the future. “What’s your idea of the future journal?” “It will be written by advertisers, and it will contain nothing calculated to bring a blush to the cheek of the young person except cosmetics.” See also: Tablet Newspaper (1994)

Tech News Matt Novak Jul 18

Power Macintosh Ad: Fighting Spacemen (1994)

Continuing our series of ads from the 1994 Power Macintosh campaign, this one involves fighting spacemen of the (paleo)future. See also: Power Macintosh Ad: This Future Belongs to the Past (1994) Jet Packs and Macs (1994)

Tech News Matt Novak May 16

Vending Machine Gives Out Free Drinks for Watching Ads

Thirsty? Out of cash? Don’t worry, if you’re near one of these Japanese MediCafe vending machines, it’ll give you a drink for free. Not because you’ve got a pretty face, because you don’t. No, it doles out free drinks as a reward for you watching an advertisement on its built-in video screen. Now I hate…

Gadgets Adam Frucci May 11

Jet Packs and Macs (1994)

Like the teaser ad for the new Power Macintosh in 1994, this ad reappropriates images of the paleo-future. See also: Power Macintosh Ad: This Future Belongs to the Past (1994)

Tech News Matt Novak May 2

Sony’s $20 Million Dollar Ad Campaign Dupes Pogue’s One Day Video

The NYTimes writes that Sony spent $20 million at the BBDO advertising agency, so they could make some lighthearted gadget ads. A portion of that large sum bought them a Sony Handycam commercial that showed a 20 year old acting like a baby in a bathtub so his parents could relive his infant moments. What…

Tech News Brian Lam Apr 11

Talking Urinal Cakes Discourage Drunks, Deliver Urgent Messages

It’s the perfect place to reach those who are spiraling down that path to drunkenness: a urinal, where guys who are merely renting beer are returning its effervescent byproducts whence they came. The weird thing is, this urinal cake actually talks. As soon as it senses motion, a disembodied voiceover babe talks to your penis…

Gadgets Charlie White Feb 12

Fun With Contextual Advertising: Vista Edition

Item 1: Kill John Hodgman. Bill Gates’ To-Do list [News.com]

Tech News Jason Chen Feb 1

Outdoor Video Ads Go High-Def in NY

If you thought all those ads in Times Square were annoying before, brace yourself cause you’re about to see more of them. The Discovery Channel (with the help of its advertising agency) is embarking on NY’s first ever HD advertising campaign by installing HDTV kiosks throughout NY in an effort to brand the station’s name…

Tech News Louis Ramirez Jan 30

Hope You’ve Got Broadband: Here Come Google Video Ads

Using its nearly ubiquitous AdSense network, Google is going to start delivering video ads from The Wall Street Journal, Life/Style Television and others to a small group of sites that choose to test the new program. Like their standard text ads, the video ones will be determined contextually. Of course, we can expect this relatively…

Tech News Matt Buchanan Jan 25

Cute Girl Succeeds having People Buy Her a MacBook Pro

Remember way back in the day when Leah Culver was trying to buy a MacBook Pro by selling laser-etched advertising? Well, she succeeded, and here is the final creation. Honestly, it doesn’t look too bad. https://gizmodo.com/cute-girl-sells-laser-etched-macbook-advertising-203450 Nice work, Leah. Now, since uh, I posted about it back in the day and partially helped you get…

Tech News Travis Hudson Nov 21

Magic Mirror Replaces Your Mug with an Ad

It wasn’t long ago we showed you that commercial-playing hand dryer from down under and now we’re back with something even creepier. The Magic Mirror is a small attachment that can change any mirror into a billboard. So when left alone, it’s a billboard. Walk up to it, and it’ll become a mirror…. https://gizmodo.com/video-ads-coming-to-a-hand-dryer-near-you-207990 The…

Tech News Louis Ramirez Oct 19

AddMirror: Ads in Bathroom Mirrors Are Coming

The last bastion of privacy and repose is slowly being eroded, where first we heard about advertisements over urinals, and now enterprising ideapeople at Addirect have figured out how to hide ads behind mirrors. The company plans to roll out AddMirror around the world starting this month, which it test marketed in 300 fancy-schmancy bars…

Gadgets Charlie White Jul 24

Mickey Dee’s Harnesses McSun for Chicago Billboard

We once knew a girl whose face was so ugly it could stop a sundial, so if she lives near Wrigley Field in Chicago, she won’t have any way of knowing that it’s time to stop eating Egg McMuffins and start digging into Big Macs. Ad agency Leo Burnett dreamed up this idea for a…

Gadgets Charlie White Jul 12

Celltick: Push for Phones

Celltick is launching LiveScreen, a screen-saver for cellies that pushes news, weather, and other updates via your phone’s idle screen. That it also displays ads and other dosh is purely incidental and should stop you from downloading it. Looks like they’re focusing on Symbian phones right now, but look for this company to tank in…

Tech News John Biggs Jun 27

LiteFast: A Real Experience

A kind reader pointed out this unusual signage. He’s actually working on creating content for these things and it can display three copies of one 800×600 image around its circumferance. An internal set of LEDs spin around and it can potentially display moving and still images with little flicker. Cool? Sure. But if we can…

Gadgets Johnb May 22

Lightships A-170 Video Blimp

Say good-bye, Goodyear blimp. Your ride is now obsolete. Lightship unveiled this beast of a blimp at the NAB broadcast conference last week. It has a massive 30-foot by 70-foot LED screen that displays over 30,000 pixels. During the day the screen is limited to a single color for visibility reasons, but at night anything…

Gadgets Travis Hudson May 3

Philips Patents Way To Force TV Viewers To Watch Ads

Royal Philips is being a royal pain in the arse with a new technology to make TV watchers unable to skip commercials. Their recent patent filing indicates that broadcast flags would be inserted into commercials in order to allow supported TVs to disable channel changing during breaks. In addition, the flags would also be recognized…

Television Jason Chen Apr 19

The Latest in Advertising Technology

Who needs popup ads and banner ads all over the place when you can just slap a jacket on a sheep and call it good? These hotel-supporting sheep showed up in the Netherlands. Expect Gizmodo.com cattle coming to a Kansas feed yard shortly. 20 Minutes [Via We-make-money]

Gadgets Travis Hudson Apr 11

New Apple iPod Commercial: They Built This City…

Enjoy Apple’s new iPod nano commercial, illustrating how quickly your glittering towers of DRM-locked music can be leveled after Apple deauthorizes your PC, leaving your purchased music trapped in your iPod, never to be offloaded. We’re not sure if we like this commercial better than the old ones, which featured the animated silhouettes of those…

Tech News Joel Mar 17

Picturesque America (1909)

Future Newspapers Written by Advertisers (1912)

Power Macintosh Ad: Fighting Spacemen (1994)

Vending Machine Gives Out Free Drinks for Watching Ads

Jet Packs and Macs (1994)

Sony’s $20 Million Dollar Ad Campaign Dupes Pogue’s One Day Video

Talking Urinal Cakes Discourage Drunks, Deliver Urgent Messages

Fun With Contextual Advertising: Vista Edition

Outdoor Video Ads Go High-Def in NY

Hope You’ve Got Broadband: Here Come Google Video Ads

Cute Girl Succeeds having People Buy Her a MacBook Pro

Magic Mirror Replaces Your Mug with an Ad

AddMirror: Ads in Bathroom Mirrors Are Coming

Mickey Dee’s Harnesses McSun for Chicago Billboard

Celltick: Push for Phones

LiteFast: A Real Experience

Lightships A-170 Video Blimp

Philips Patents Way To Force TV Viewers To Watch Ads

The Latest in Advertising Technology

New Apple iPod Commercial: They Built This City…

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