Research and Course Guides: STCM 244: Research, Measurement, & Evaluation: Find Ads

Current Advertisements & Commercials

AdCouncil
The Ad Council is one of America's leading producers of public service communications.
Adforum
Over 200,000 advertisements are available on the Adforum site.
Ads of the World
Partnered with CLIO, this site has both print and commercial advertisements.
Facebook Ad Library
The ad library provides advertising transparency by offering a comprehensive, searchable collection of all ads currently running from across Facebook apps and services, including Instagram.
Movie Trailers in iTunes
Browse trailers for current movies in iTunes.

Advertisements: Historical

American Periodicals Series This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to 1,500 magazines, newspapers and popular journal titles published in the United States dating 1741 through the 1930s.
Artstor This link opens in a new window
Try a general search for 'advertisements' and narrow your results from there. Or select the Washington University: Walt Reed Illustration Archive from the 'Artstor collections' menu and browse ads from the late 19th to mid 20th century.
National Geographic Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
Access to the complete archive of National Geographic magazine — every page of every issue — along with a cross-searchable collection of National Geographic books, maps, images, and videos.
New York Times (historical) This link opens in a new window
Full coverage of the New York Times from 1851-2006. To search for ads, in the Advanced Search, change one of the drop-down menus to Document Type, and enter the keyword 'ad.' Enter search terms in another box and hit the Search button. (NOTE: You can also enter "display ad" which will eliminate the classified ads.)
Women's Magazine Archive This link opens in a new window
With this database you have access to several popular women’s magazines published in the United States and Canada dating from the from the late 1800s through the 20th century.

Ad*Access
The Ad*Access Project presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955. [Duke University Library Digital Collection]
Emergence of Advertising in America
The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 (EAA) presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States. [Duke University Library Digital Collection]
AdViews: A Digital Archive of Vintage Television Commercials
AdViews is a digital archive of thousands of vintage television commercials created or collected by the D'Arcy Masius Benton & Bowles (DMB&B) advertising agency, dated 1950s - 1980s. [Duke University Library Digital Collection]
YouTube
Great place to search for current and vintage TV commercials.
Phillip Morris Advertising Archive
This website contains color images of the contents of the Philip Morris USA, Inc. Advertising Archive dating back to the early 1900s.
PSA Central
The Ad Council, producer of public service ads (PSAs) for TV, radio, newspapers, magazines, billboards, and the Web, makes a variety of these ads available for preview or download on this site. Free registration required.
Living Room Candidate
Presidential Commercials 1952-2008 of interest to both political science researchers and journalists from the Museum of the Moving Image.
Vintage Ad Browser
"This site aims to collect vintage ads from a variety of sources."
Wikimedia Commons
A database of several million freely usable media files.