Who can forget Mikey and his box of Life cereal? After all, he liked it.
How about those dancing California Raisins who heard it through the grapevine, or those swinging Gap kids and their khakis?
With AdCritic.com, you can view your favorite commercials of all time, or the latest debuts.
From Ralph Nader’s political campaign ads to the Volkswagen Da Da Da, AdCritic features close to 2,000 popular and not-so-popular television commercials.
Users can search for those memorable advertisements or try the alphabetical product listing. Most ads are recent, but a few stretch back to the `70s.
The site, which began in January 1999, featured only Super Bowl ads. However, the dot-com quickly added commercials that were taken directly from TV.
“It started as just a way to bring the best TV commercials to the Web,” said Peter Beckman, founder and CEO of AdCritic.
Beckman said the site did not experience copyright problems associated with reproducing commercials on the Web because agencies were happy with the additional exposure for their ads.
“The agencies were more than happy to have a site that featured the greatest commercials of all time,” he said.
But AdCritic soon began working directly with advertising agencies and corporations around the world to acquire commercials. Now 90 percent of the ads featured on AdCritic come from agencies.
Each day, the site generates a Top 10 list of the latest commercials, where users can find their current favorites, even those from Oscar night, including Britney Spears’ infamous Pepsi ad or the Budweiser “Mafia Wazzup.”
Besides commercials for products, users will also find movie trailers for the latest flicks as well as links to Amazon.com to find the popular music used in commercials.
Over time, the site has also turned into a marketing researcher for advertising agencies, providing statistical analysis of viewer habits through online focus groups and ad testing.
“We never say to the agencies that Bob Jones, the individual, watches, but rather which age groups are responding to ads,” Beckman said.
The online focus groups provide the ad agencies with 24-hour-a-day feedback from participants.
“We provide all kinds of different services,” Beckman said. “This is a place for people to find anything related to ads. Our site is also used as an educational resource in schools and universities.”
According to Beckman, AdCritic plans to continue featuring any type of advertising or broadband video on the site.
“You can find anything you might see on TV, cable or in the theaters,” he said.
The Virginia-based company boasts approximately 30,000 visitors to the site each day. Adcritic receives commercials from all over the world, including South Africa and a large number of submissions from Canada.
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