A bit of advertising history: famous logos and Super Bowl Commercials

Things have gotten very busy again at Perceptivity Studio. Not that I'm complaining in the least, but it's made my blogging become a bit scarce! I really do plan to get some of the fun new projects we've been working on up here soon, but in the meantime, here are a few websites where you can go kill some time learning about the history of advertising.

1. Stories Behind 10 Famous Food Logos
Sure you recognize them in the grocery store, but do you know how these famous icons came to be? Get to know more about the Morton Salt Girl, Jolly Green Giant, Sara Lee, Quaker Oats and the Laughing Cow, find out where Heinz 57 came from, and find out which two of these four icons are real people and which two were dreamed up by creative advertising geniuses: the Gerber baby, Aunt Jemima, Chef Boyardee and Betty Crocker. I love seeing how brands have evolved over the years but still maintained a sense of brand equity so you and I will still recognize them.

2. The Adland Archive of Super Bowl Commercials
While most years I honestly couldn't care less about the football teams playing in the Super Bowl, I most certainly do care about the famous Super Bowl commercials! Super Bowl commercials are notoriously the best commercials you'll see all year, and companies spend humongous amounts of money to make sure their spots will be the ones talked about. (This year the starting cost for a :30 Super Bowl commercial is reportedly up to $3 million dollars, not to mention the production costs to put together that :30 spot. What would you do with that kind of marketing budget?)

Anyway, here is an archive of all of the notable Super Bowl commercials from years past. My all time favorite Super Bowl commercial? The Apple 1984 commercial from, not surprisingly, the year 1984. It's a classic and gives me chills every time I see it. Not to mention it launched Mac computers! Here's a bit of history on the Apple 1984 commercial:

The Apple 1984 commercial was created by the advertising agency Chiat/Day, and Ridley Scott (who had recently finished filming Blade Runner) was hired to direct it with the "unheard-of production budget of $900,000." Steve Jobs loved the spot, so they purchased commercial spots in the upcoming Super Bowl. In December 1983 they screened the 1984 commercial for the Apple Board of Directors, and reportedly the entire board hated it. It almost got pulled in favor of a much safer but much less impactful spot, but thankfully it did run and the rest is history. To read more about it, there's a great article here.

The Apple 1984 commercial is embedded below, enjoy!

Ikea brings holiday spirit to their billboards

With billboard design, sometimes it's hard to step outside the box, or in this case, the rectangle. There are so many restrictions...making sure that you don't have too many words (because you sure don't want your potential customers to crash their cars!), that your text is readable from a distance, that your message is easy to grasp in just a few seconds, etc.

Some companies get their billboards very, very wrong, but there are a few that always stand out for me, getting their billboard designs very, very right. Like the Chick-fil-A cow billboards. You've seen them...three dimensional cows stand below the board promoting "chikin." Genius!

And I just saw these three-dimensional, holiday-specific billboard designs from one of my favorite places...Ikea! If you haven't been to Ikea, you're totally missing out on a zen-like experience...two gigantic stories of low-cost, but totally stylish furniture and home accessories. But I digress...Ikea has done some great advertising over the years, like the award-winning Ikea Lamp commercial, which I'll embed at the bottom of this post if you haven't seen it. Ikea continues the trend with these fantastic billboard designs, which feature the words Joy, Hope and Love made from families enjoying the holidays with their Ikea furniture. The simple copy at the bottom says "Decorate for the holidays." Which of course has a double meaning, so brilliant!










Now get our your tissues for the Ikea Lamp commercial. This message totally speaks to me, because I'm one of those sentimental fools who gets attached to inanimate objects. Enjoy!