A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials

Any­one who has an inter­est in adver­tis­ing, cul­ture or his­tory, should check out the amaz­ing col­lec­tion of tele­vi­sion adver­tis­ing archived by Duke Uni­ver­sity Library. The col­lec­tion is called AdViews: A Dig­i­tal Archive of Vin­tage Tele­vi­sion Com­mer­cials, and is well worth a look.

These fine Amer­i­can com­mer­cials date from the 1950’s through the 1980’s and con­tain (as the archive descrip­tion says)

Notable tele­vi­sion com­mer­cials cre­ated for var­i­ous clients from the D’Arcy Masius Ben­ton & Bowles adver­tis­ing agency archives held in the John W. Hart­man Cen­ter for Sales, Adver­tis­ing & Mar­ket­ing His­tory at the Duke Uni­ver­sity Libraries. The TV ads were dig­i­tized from the 16mm preser­va­tion film prints in 2009, as part of the AdViews Collection.

The com­mer­cials are hosted through iTunes, so be sure to down­load some Madi­son Avenue good­ness. I find it most inter­est­ing to see how adver­tis­ing has evolved, or devolved depend­ing on one’s point of view. There are some excel­lent exam­ples of mid-century mod­ern typog­ra­phy, iconog­ra­phy and sen­si­bil­i­ties to be found.

Related posts:

1. Fri­day Free­bie: Vin­tage Hawai­ian Map Wallpaper