Ads infinitum: Online exhibit celebrates classic commercials

Mean Joe Greene

Just in time for Super Bowl week, a critically acclaimed online exhibit on the history of television commercials has been relaunched by Chicago’s Museum of Broadcast Communications.

Culled from the museum’s archives of more than 10,000 commercials and nearly 100,000 hours of content, We’ll Be Right Back: 60 Years of Television Commercials includes more than four decades of Super Bowl ads, from such classics as Mean Joe Greene’s Coca-Cola spot and Joe Namath and Farrah Fawcett shilling for Noxema to Betty White and Abe Vigoda touting Snickers.

After the exhibit was originally launched last year, it quickly became the museum’s most popular online feature ever. Organized by decade (from “The Cool ’50s” to “The 2K’s”) and by genre, each section includes an authoritative essay that provides historical context to the featured commercials. Additional sections also cover product placement, political advertising, infomercials and public service announcements.

Curator of the exhibit is television historian David Plier, a board member of the museum and CEO of the advertising agency Retail First Corp. Plier will appear in the 8am hour Monday on WGN Morning News with a preview of some of this year’s Super Bowl commercials and the strategies behind them.

“With over 110 million expected to watch this year's game and the highest cost ever for a Super Bowl spot — $3 million for 30 seconds — it is guaranteed to be a hot topic,” he said.