Posts Tagged ‘advertising’
Imminent Domain…
It’s not too late, Dear Readers, to hoist oneself onto the web, and to become a contributing part of the 21st Century. Indeed, Last Words Left is a handy place to begin:
We started with a list of the 100,000 most used words in the English language. We checked to see which were registered as .Com or .Net. These ones [conveniently listed on the site] are still available. The full list of 35,000+ available one word .Com and .Net domains can be found here.
Absurdest.net? Parallelisms.com? Zealousness.net? One can take one’s pick here. (Note that clicking on an available url takes one to GoDaddy, where the domain name can be registered… one can of course register it elsewhere if one prefers…)
As we begin to worry about traffic and search engines rankings, we might recall that on this date in 1979 the first newspaper advertisement (for industrial machinery, as it happened) appeared in the Chinese Communist Party organ The People’s Daily. (Earlier that year the first post-Cultural Revolution newspaper ad had run in the Tianjin Daily, for Blue Sky toothpaste.)
Fun with Advertising!…
With the perspective of passing time often comes the desire to re-write the past. Now, as the “Twisted Adverts” Flickr pool demonstrates, one can.
Bobster855 has created and collected dozens of goodies like this re-purposed lawn mower advertisement:
Or this Aunt Jemima spread:
See them all here.
Then, readers who are disposed to do a little revisionist mashing themselves should turn to the hundreds of specimens at The Vintage Ad Browser. Consider, for example, what one could do with:
Procter & Gamble Co.’s Drene Shampoo (1937)
As we take steps to “control the dialogue,” we might recall that it was on this date in 1952 that NBC TV format pioneer Sylvester L. “Pat” Weaver premiered The Today Show— and introduced the U.S. (and the world, as it turned out) to morning “news.” Hosts over the years have included John Chancellor, Hugh Downs, Florence Henderson, Barbara Walters, Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Jane Pauley, Matt Lauer, and Katie Couric. In 1953, the show also featured a chimpanzee named J. Fred Muggs, who co-hosted with Dave Garroway. (Weaver also pioneered other important formats– including The Tonight Show– but is probably better known these days as the father of Signorey Weaver.)
Nostalgia: careful what you wish….
As Mad Men continues its ascendency in the zeitgeist, Retrocomedy provides some context: “The 15 Creepiest Vintage Ads Of All Time“… from murder and suicide to eerie babies and demented clowns, it’s all here! (Thanks to reader RS for the tip.)
As we turn the page, we might consider the (admittedly radical) alternative as we wish the most Transcendental of birthdays to Henry David Thoreau, born on this date in 1817.
Not fighting the last war…
From Brian Lane Winfield Moore, inspirational updates of classic war posters– propaganda for the new millennium!
See Norman Rockwell’s original here… and see Brian’s full set here.
As we feel the stirrings of a sense of duty, we might recall that on this date in 1941, NBC broadcast the first TV commercial to be sanctioned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The appearance of illegal ads on stations earlier in the year had moved the FCC to act; they began licensing commercial television stations in May 1941, granting the first license to NBC. During a Dodgers-Phillies game that was broadcast July 1, NBC pulled the trigger on its newly-acquired right, and ran its first commercial– for which the first legitimate television advertiser, Bulova, paid $4.
The first (legal) television commercial (source: MobHappy)
The gentle art of persuasion…
Our friends at Den of Geek have compiled a list of the “Top 25 fictional ads in sci-fi movies.”
Numero Uno? This clip from John Carpenter’s (vastly under-rated) They Live:
Click on the image above (or here) to see this inspiration to Shephard Fairey– his Obey the Giant series– and click here to see the other two dozen honorees, along with a few bonuses.
As we move to the phone to call now!, we might offer a tip of the birthday topper to Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin, remembering that on this date in 1841, Edgar Allen Poe’s story, “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”– the first detective story in English– was published in Graham’s Lady’s and Gentleman’s Magazine. Its protagonist’s extraordinary “analytical power” was surely the mold for subsequent detectives, from Sgt. Cuff in The Moonstone (Wilkie Collins’ second hit, and the first detective novel in English) through Conan Doyle’s remarkable Sherlock to Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and his “little grey cells”…
Facsimile of Poe’s manuscript for “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”
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