The American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) is the main trade association for the advertising industry.
To find advertising agencies, search the Standard Directory of {Domestic/International} Ad Agencies
on Lexis (BUSREF;SDAA) Lexis also has the Standard Directory of {Domestic/International} Advertisers (BUSREF;SDA) and a combined file (BUSREF;REDBK). You can also find the the SDAA and the SDA on on Dialog (Files 178 and 177).
For information about the advertising industry, search articles from Advertising Age and Adweek, and use the sources discussed in the "Market Research" entry. Note: Data from many advertising publications is available in TableBase (Dialog File 93).
Monitoring, Tracking and Retrieval: The Video Monitoring Service and Competitrack will monitor advertisements in multiple media to find a company name, person, product, etc., at your request. Nielsen Buzzmetrics monitors company and product names mentioned in blogs.
Old Ads: Sources for advertisements include:
* Adflip.com for classic print advertisements;
* Ad*Access covering ads from 1911 to 1955;
* YouTube for some TV commercials;
* The Video Monitoring Service (212-736-2010) for TV commercials starting in the 1970s;
* Adweek's Best Spots (212-979-4634) for new and old commercials.
* Competitrack lets you search their database after (free) registration
* iTunes sells old TV commercials from Duke University's AdViews collection (1950s-1980s), and possibly other sources.
For more information, try contacting the Museum of Radio and Television.
For foreign ads, in addition to the sources above, try:
For services that sell recordings of TV and radio shows that may include commercials, see "News - Television & Radio - Transcripts and Recordings."
Lawyer Advertising: A summary of each state's ethical restrictions on lawyer advertising is posted on LawOffice.com. For further research, see "Legal Ethics."
Regulation and NARB Reports: The advertising industry has adopted "a system of voluntary self-regulation." The system is administered by the
the National Advertising Division ("NAD") of the Council of Better Business Bureaus (CBBB), the Children's Advertising Review Unit (CARU), the National Advertising Review Board (NARB) and the Electronic Retailing Self-Regulatory Program (ERSP). Policies for these organizations are set by the National Advertising Review Council (NARC). Information about these agencies is posted on the NARC, NAD and CARU Web sites.
The decisions of the NAD, CARU and NARB are called "Reports." NAD Reports, CARU Reports and NARB Reports are posted on the NAD Web site. In addition, NAD Reports are published in a newsletter called NAD Case Reports. Decisions of the ERSP are posted on the NARC Web site.
Rates: Advertising rates for print advertising are published in the Standard Rate & Data Service (SRDS). Some TV rates are mentioned in the reports posted in the Advertising Age Data Center.
Spending: The U.S. Census breaks down advertising spending by SEC codes. The Adweek
"SuperBrands Report" shows ad spending by brand. Data from a number of other sources is available in TableBase (Dialog File 93).
For more information about ad spending and effectiveness, see "The Advertising Game," by Terese Mulkern Terry, 15(4) Business Information Alert 5-6 (April 2003).
Treatises: The leading legal treatise on advertising is Rosden's Law of Advertising (Lexis/Matthew Bender).
