Advertising

Advertising is meant to persuade, and the themes and techniques of that persuasion reveal a part of the nation's history. The Museum has preserved advertising campaigns for several familiar companies, such as Marlboro, Alka-Seltzer, Federal Express, Cover Girl, and Nike. It also holds the records of the NW Ayer Advertising Agency and business papers from Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, Carvel Ice Cream, and other companies. The Warshaw Collection of Business Americana comprises thousands of trade cards, catalogs, labels, and other business papers and images dating back to the late 1700s.

Beyond advertising campaigns, the collections encompass thousands of examples of packaging, catalogs, and other literature from many crafts and trades, from engineering to hat making. The collections also contain an eclectic array of advertising objects, such as wooden cigar-store Indians, neon signs, and political campaign ads.

Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1975
associated institution
Holiday Inns, Inc.
maker
Holiday Inns, Inc.
ID Number
1983.0021.01
accession number
1983.0021
catalog number
1983.0021.01
Cameras promoting products, causes, exhibitions, celebrities, and organizations have been available since dry plates and roll film made mass snapshot photography possible.
Description
Cameras promoting products, causes, exhibitions, celebrities, and organizations have been available since dry plates and roll film made mass snapshot photography possible. Some examples include 1920s official Boy Scout and Girl Guide cameras, 1939 Worlds fair cameras, and cameras featuring movie stars such as Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rodgers. In addition camera manufacturers have often produced special promotional cameras featuring commemorative logos or gold plating that have sold at a premium to collectors.
Cameras bearing advertising slogans like the Velveeta Shells & Cheese dinner promotional camera shown here have appeared in thousands of different varieties. The camera shown here uses 110 film that was introduced by Kodak in 1972. Many simple point and shoot promotional cameras appeared in the 1970s using 110 film. The promotional camera lives on today in the form of 35mm one time use cameras with advertising printed on the outer cover.
From its invention in 1839, the camera has evolved to fit many needs, from aerial to underwater photography and everything in between. Cameras allow both amateur and professional photographers to capture the world around us. The Smithsonian’s historic camera collection includes rare and unique examples of equipment, and popular models, related to the history of the science, technology, and art of photography.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1970s
ID Number
2004.0130.01
accession number
2004.0130
catalog number
2004.0130.01
This short sleeve, dark and light blue shirt is made of polyester fabric, embroidered with the double arches logo on the left front and has a light blue zipper.
Description
This short sleeve, dark and light blue shirt is made of polyester fabric, embroidered with the double arches logo on the left front and has a light blue zipper. Maker's tag inscribed "Made expressly for McDonald's® personnel by Ottenheimer & Co., Career Apparel Division.” It is a women's medium and was worn by the donor in 1973 while working for McDonald's®. The donor’s primary position was cashier/clerk, but each employee was trained to be able to perform each task in the restaurant in the event someone called off and they had to fill in for the day. The location where the donor worked was located close to a college campus and the staff pool primarily consisted of college students.
The McDonald’s Corporation is one of the most recognizable hamburger restaurants in the United States. As of 2011, the McDonald’s Corporation and franchisees were operating in 119 countries with 1.9 million employees, making it the 4th largest employer in the world.
In 1940, Richard (Dick) and Maurice (Mac) McDonald opened the first McDonald’s Bar-B-Q drive-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California. In 1948, the brothers redesigned their menu, centering on the 15 cent hamburger. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a Multimixer (milkshake machine) salesman, became interested in the McDonalds brothers’ high volume restaurant. He worked out a deal with the brothers to be their franchising agent and opened the first franchise location in Illinois the following year. Under Kroc’s direction, the company grew to become the giant we know today.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
ca 1973
ID Number
2011.0091.01
catalog number
2011.0091.01
accession number
2011.0091
By 2013, McDonald’s signs could be found in all 50 states as well as approximately 120 countries. This sign was made in the U.S.A. for use in Japan. While the writing is in Japanese, the sign remains instantly recognizable due to its color scheme and signature golden arches.
Description
By 2013, McDonald’s signs could be found in all 50 states as well as approximately 120 countries. This sign was made in the U.S.A. for use in Japan. While the writing is in Japanese, the sign remains instantly recognizable due to its color scheme and signature golden arches. Not only the look of the restaurant remains standardized, but also the menu, making only a few concessions to local tastes. Such as using kosher meats in Israel, halal meat in Muslim countries and serving a Teriyaki McBurger in Japan.
In 1940, Richard (Dick) and Maurice (Mac) McDonald opened the first McDonald’s Bar-B-Q drive-in restaurant in San Bernardino, California. In 1948, the brothers redesigned their menu, centering on the 15 cent hamburger. In 1954, Ray Kroc, a Multimixer (milkshake machine) salesman, became interested in the McDonalds brothers’ high volume restaurant. He worked out a deal with the brothers to be their franchising agent and opened the first franchise location in Illinois the following year. Under Kroc’s direction, the company grew to become the giant we know today.
date made
1975
associated institution
McDonald's Corporation
maker
McDonald's International
ID Number
1983.0020.01
accession number
1983.0020
catalog number
1983.0020.01
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1971
maker
Harbutt, Charles
ID Number
PG.72.14.024
David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country.
Description
David Lance Goines is known as a writer and lecturer as well as an illustrator and printer of both letterpress and offset lithography, his work much exhibited and collected throughout the country. But his Arts and Crafts influenced design is best known on his posters and in books. Goines was a recognized activist in Berkeley, associated with the Free Speech and Anti-War movements, and he did poster and book work for these movements.
Alice Waters, who founded the Berkeley restaurant, Chez Panisse, was a founding inspiration of the fresh, local, and organic food movement. She met David Goines in the Berkeley Free Speech movement. They began to collaborate on a column, “Alice’s Restaurant” for the local alternative paper. She wrote the recipes and he provided the artwork. He collected and printed each column as Thirty Recipes for Framing and the entire set and individual prints from the set began to appear on Berkeley walls and beyond, establishing him with enough profits to buy the Berkeley Free Press, rechristened the St. Hieronymus Press.
He issued his first Chez Panisse poster, "Red-Haired Lady," in 1972 and his most recent, "41st Anniversary," in 2012. In between is a series of anniversary posters, plus occasional others celebrating the restaurant's book releases, such as the Chez Panisse Café Cookbook, and other ventures. These works established his place as the primary artist associated with food and wine in the so-called Gourmet Ghetto. His early posters for Chez Panisse were soon followed by requests from other food and wine related sites and events, as well as from many other commercial entities.
The 1976 logo for Ravenswood Winery shows three intertwined ravens in a triskelion on the label designed by Goines for the release of the winery’s first vintage of Zinfandel. Winemaker Joel Peterson, the founder of Ravenswood Winery, told the artist of something he experienced in harvesting his first vintage. Ravens were the vineyard protectors who cawed at him through his stormy, debut harvest. Years later, the image is well known from the wine label which has remained as Goines designed it in 1976 (number 83 in the Goines repertory), on what became one of the most popular wines in the country.
The label even inspires tattoos. Peterson says that anyone showing up at the winery with a tattoo of said Ravenswood/Goines image will receive tastings of the wine free. Since 2008, every July the Winery holds a Tattoo Coming Out Party and Poetry Slam where people without permanent ink on their bodies can receive a temporary tattoo if they write a poem that “declares your love for tattoos, Ravens, or tattoos.”
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1979
maker
Goines, David Lance
ID Number
2012.0169.01
accession number
2012.0169
catalog number
2012.0169.01
Bumper Sticker for "The Amazing World of Superman," a planned theme park devoted to the iconic superhero, that was to open in Metropolis, Il, In 1972.
Description (Brief)
Bumper Sticker for "The Amazing World of Superman," a planned theme park devoted to the iconic superhero, that was to open in Metropolis, Il, In 1972. That year, the Illinois state legislature passed a resolution naming the city, which shares a name with the character's fictional residence, the "hometown of Superman." Today, Metropolis, IL is home to a Superman statue, Museum, and annual Superman Celebration.
The character of Superman first flew into action in 1938. The costumed superhero was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two Jewish teenagers from Cleveland Ohio, who used, among other things, Classical mythology, philosopher Fredrich Nietzche's concept of the "uber mensch," and the era's popular science fiction and adventure writing, for inspiration.
With his debut in Action Comics #1, Superman became an instant sensation with audiences, inspired by the "Man of Tomorrow's" virtue and heroics at time when the Nation was slowly emerging from the economic catastrophe of the Great Depression and moving closer to World War.
Born on the doomed planet Krypton, Superman was sent to Earth as a child, where our world's yellow sun granted him extraordinary powers such as flight, super-strength, near-invulnerability, as well as other extraordinary abilities including heat and X-Ray vision. As an adult living in the city of Metropolis, the alien, born Kal-El, protects his identity by assuming the persona of Clark Kent, a "mild-mannered" journalist.
Fighting for "Truth and Justice," Superman birthed a cultural fascination with superheroes, and has become one of the most recognizable and influential fictional characters in history. In addition to comic books, the character has been explored in all forms of media, including radio, television, and film, and has been used to promote a variety of successful consumer products, educational initiatives and public service campaigns.
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1973
ID Number
1987.0213.138
accession number
1987.0213
catalog number
1987.0213.138
1987.0213.138
This is a neon sign used by a restaurant in the 1970s to advertise the business was open 24 hours. During the 1970s onward, businesses began extending their hours to cater to consumers around the clock.
Description
This is a neon sign used by a restaurant in the 1970s to advertise the business was open 24 hours. During the 1970s onward, businesses began extending their hours to cater to consumers around the clock.
date made
1970 - 1975
ID Number
1987.0887.03
accession number
1987.0887
catalog number
1987.0887.03
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1950s-1970s
1960s-1970s
Associated Name
Volkswagen Group of America, Inc.
graphic artist
Weber, Martin J.
ID Number
2011.0071.188
catalog number
2011.0071.188
accession number
2011.0071
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
copyright date
1973
ID Number
1977.0575.10
accession number
1977.0575
catalog number
1977.0575.10
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1977
depicted; performing artist
Minnelli, Liza
designer
Halston
visual artist
Eula, Joe
user
Majestic Theatre
maker
Eula, Joe
ID Number
2002.3087.01
catalog number
2002.3087.01
nonaccession number
2002.3087
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup.
Description (Brief)
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup. The one-minute commercial, produced and directed by noted humorist and broadcaster, Stan Freberg, was a tribute to the spectacular, Busby Berkeley-style Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, with Miller rising up out of the floor on top of a eight feet high cylinder designed to look like a giant soup can. She was backed by spurting red, white, and blue fountains and a staircase filled with singing and dancing platinum blonde chorines. The song featured in the commercial is a Freberg parody of a Hollywood tribute and has, as one of its campy, nonsensical lyrics the following phrase: ”Who’s got its noodles up in lights/ From Broadway to the Loop?/It’s the great – I said the great – the Great American Soup!” At the conclusion of the lavish musical number, Miller whirls back into kitchen setting where the scene began and Dave Willock, the actor playing her husband, remarks, “Why do you always have to make such a production out of everything?”
The costume, created by the Berman Costume Company, is made of red satin and decorated with iridescent red sequins and a glittering white rhinestone filigree pattern trim around the hips and top of bust Another major component of the costume is a bright red silk top hat, decorated with a silver band and blue stars. Both elements of costume, combined with Miller’s sunny, tongue-in-cheek performance style and Freberg’s witty script, make this one of the funniest, most elaborate commercials ever produced.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
performing artist
Miller, Ann
maker
Berman Costume Company
ID Number
2002.0268.01.02
accession number
2002.0268
catalog number
2002.0268.01.02
Commemorative broken goblet presented to jazz vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald, by Memorex in appreciation for her work in an advertising campaign built around Ella's high notes and the high fidelity of their tapes. "Is it Ella," the ad asked, "or is it Memorex"?Currently not on view
Description
Commemorative broken goblet presented to jazz vocalist, Ella Fitzgerald, by Memorex in appreciation for her work in an advertising campaign built around Ella's high notes and the high fidelity of their tapes. "Is it Ella," the ad asked, "or is it Memorex"?
Location
Currently not on view
presentation date
ca 1973
recipient
Fitzgerald, Ella
presenter
Memorex Products, Inc.
ID Number
1996.0342.047
accession number
1996.0342
catalog number
1996.0342.047
Currently not on view
Location
Currently not on view
Date made
1976
copyright holder; publisher
Campbell Soup Company
maker
Campbell Soup Company
ID Number
2001.3007.20
nonaccession number
2001.3007
catalog number
2001.3007.20
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup.
Description (Brief)
Ann Miller, the vivacious tap-dancing star of such classic screen musicals as On the Town (1949) and Kiss Me Kate (1953) wore this sparkling costume in a famous 1971 TV commercial for Heinz’s short-lived product, Great American Soup. The one-minute commercial, produced and directed by noted humorist and broadcaster, Stan Freberg, was a tribute to the spectacular, Busby Berkeley-style Hollywood musicals of the 1930s and 1940s, with Miller rising up out of the floor on top of a eight feet high cylinder designed to look like a giant soup can. She was backed by spurting red, white, and blue fountains and a staircase filled with singing and dancing platinum blonde chorines. The song featured in the commercial is a Freberg parody of a Hollywood tribute and has, as one of its campy, nonsensical lyrics the following phrase: ”Who’s got its noodles up in lights/ From Broadway to the Loop?/It’s the great – I said the great – the Great American Soup!” At the conclusion of the lavish musical number, Miller whirls back into kitchen setting where the scene began and Dave Willock, the actor playing her husband, remarks, “Why do you always have to make such a production out of everything?”
The costume, created by the Berman Costume Company, is made of red satin and decorated with iridescent red sequins and a glittering white rhinestone filigree pattern trim around the hips and top of bust Another major component of the costume is a bright red silk top hat, decorated with a silver band and blue stars. Both elements of costume, combined with Miller’s sunny, tongue-in-cheek performance style and Freberg’s witty script, make this one of the funniest, most elaborate commercials ever produced.
Location
Currently not on view
date made
1970
performing artist
Miller, Ann
maker
Berman Costume Company
ID Number
2002.0268.01
accession number
2002.0268
catalog number
2002.0265.01

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