Influential ad archive AdLand gets new lease on life through acquisition by Marketecture

An internet archive of more than 80,000 advertisements dating back to the 1970s has a new owner after shutting down earlier this year. AdLand.tv, which was one of the first online blogs to routinely cover new ad creative from the likes of McDonald’s, Pepsi and Dove, will now be owned and operated by marketing media company Marketecture. Under its new leadership, the website will reopen submissions to creatives looking to highlight their work, and retains its large repository of mostly TV commercials. AdLand has been a valuable resource for marketers since art director Åsk Wäppling launched the site in the pre-YouTube era in 1996. As its primary contributor, Wäppling grew the website’s collection to include notable creative spanning numerous categories, such as alcohol, sports, retail and video games. AdLand spotlighted ads that ran in markets throughout the world, and even had a section devoted to material that had been banned in certain places. One of the website’s most extensive collections was of Super Bowl spots, for which the site maintained an archive dating back to spots that aired in the 1972 game. When Wäppling announced this past January that she was shutting the site down for personal reasons, Ari Paparo, CEO of Marketecture, jumped at the chance to keep the machine running. “There’s no better inspiration than seeing what’s been done over the last 30-plus years,” Paparo told Ad Age. Indeed, a number of marketers praised AdLand’s influence when Wäppling announced on X that it was shuttering. While recent viewership numbers are unclear, in 2007, AdLand had just under 80,000 registered members and was receiving over 900,000 unique monthly viewers, MarketingSherpa reported at the time. Part of the website’s lore were its many controversies, which included being kicked off web servers, banned by Google’s monetization platform AdSense and targeted by cyberattacks. Many of these moments hinged on Wäppling’s refusal to remove content that other organizations wanted gone. Wäppling will not be involved in AdLand’s operations going forward. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. “I’m glad that AdLand is in Marketecture’s more than capable hands,” said Wäppling in a press statement. “And I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.” Paparo wants the new AdLand to stay focused on highlighting creative, with the goal of publishing multiple new ads per week; commentary, which Wäppling often included in her posts, will not be included. Adland.tv is now up and running with a refreshed interface, three months after going offline. While Paparo clarified that the acquisition was not entirely for commercial reasons, Marketecture will seek to make AdLand profitable by requiring a fee of $89 for each ad submitted to the website, or a $798 annual subscription for unlimited submissions. The site will still be free to browse. Marketecture will take a more aggressive approach to promoting the website, using email, social media and other channels. The company also plans to expand AdLand’s TV commercial-heavy remit to include newer channels such as social media creative, Paparo said. Data-driven Marketing Playbook: Join industry leaders on May 22 to explore how data can drive marketing strategies, optimize media buying and improve customer engagement. Learn more here.

Influential ad archive AdLand gets new lease on life through acquisition by Marketecture

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