We attempted to reconstruct a famous 1950s experiment with subliminal advertising by inserting very brief flashes of certain words in this video clip.

Every time I see this, I wonder if it shouldn't be the exact opposite.

Nobody sells the dishwasher promising people that now, finally, they can do more dishes.

The washing machine rumbling in my basement means me doing less laundry on a washboard by the river.

The Nest thermostat promises I won't ever have to touch a thermostat again.

Roomba takes doing out of vacuuming.

I miss all the news that fit to print -- not all the news, and pseudo-news, and churnalism, and press releases published verbatim, and gossip, and updates to gossip, and galleries, and listicles  that drive  just one more page view.

I miss editors who say no.

I miss reading Playboy -- or anything -- for the articles.

I miss cutting things out to save them for later.

I miss ads that sell hard from a full spread and feel good about it;  ads that don't stalk you, and nag you, and creep you out.
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A note from EDGE Collective:

On September 27, EDGE Collective is hosting their inaugural event Expand My Brand, an all day symposium matching up today’s top brands with emerging technologies and startups to explore how social technology is impacting brand marketing and advertising.

Found a small stack of PDFs of scans of old issues of Grey Matter, Grey's research newsletters the agency sent out to media ("since 1935"). Particularly cool is a 1997 retrospective (pdf) of what Grey had published about television over the years.

From a 1946 issue:

"Throughout the still-raging dispute concerning the precise position television will occupy in the advertising firmament, a point has been missed...
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For a recent experiment, we divided respondents into two groups. To both groups, we showed a trailer for an upcoming movie. One group was given two different descriptions for the trailer (as if there were two different trailers) and asked to chose one or the other. We have found that the presence of this "choice" had a significant effect on recall of key facts from the trailer. We are doing some follow-up work now to clarify a few things, but what we found was pretty interesting.

Microsoft unveiled the box art for the upcoming Halo 4 game by emailing Xbox community members one of the 32 pieces of puzzle that when assembled together reveal the image.

Google's Screenwise research project announced back in February is designed to collect data on more than just Internet behavior. In addition to custom wireless routers that gather information on participants' browsing and downloading habits, the recently mailed recruiting brochure describes a device "a little bigger than a smartphone" called Screenwise TV Tab.
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Land Rover in the United Arab Emirates printed 5,000 edible copies of a desert survival guide. Twenty-eight pages of potato-based starch paper have a slightly sugary taste from the glycerin-based ink and are bound by a spiral that can be used as skewers. The book comes in  a reflective cover that can be used to send help signals.
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Saw this page on AdKeeper, the company that is trying to make online advertising bookmarkable. This could be an interesting way for Pinterest itself to make money: becoming a network for ads that people will want to hold on to. Won't be a huge stretch for them, most of the pins are already very ad like. You will easily find pins for a book, iPhone app, music, movie posters and trailers, and even payday loans.

And I already see people pinning coupons.
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