40 Years Special
Best ads of the last 40 years
This special report celebrates the first 40 years of Lürzer’s Archive by presenting a work-in-progress. That work is our first take on “the long view” across our publication’s lifespan. The result is what we set out in the following pages: the 40 best ads created in the past four decades. The list of the great and the good who helped us on this project are listed below. We are immensely grateful for their suggestions and, online, you can see their thoughts in full. Only a synthesis of many hundreds of suggestions makes its way into the following pages. We had a longlist and a shortlist and here’s the result.
But it won’t be the final word on the subject. Oh no! It too will change. It has to … We want to be challenged. For input on that, read the closing page of the report. But first enjoy, rejoice, then be driven crazy by our selection, and then rejoice again …
Why have we done this? For one very good reason. The existence of Lürzer’s Archive is built on caring deeply about showcasing the best, setting standards, helping us all learn from each other and be inspired to do even better. We try to do that with each issue, and with each “best of the week” on our site, with each of our 200best books. And so on. But despite being around for 40 years, and having some great readers who savor and keep every issue, along with many great public and university libraries that follow us, the history of standard setting is far from clear. In every issue we show the new strong work, every year awards recognize good work. But how often do we step back and really seek a wider, longer, deeper per- spective? This is that moment and not before time. We need to do it more, we need to examine what we think is best and why, reset our standards regularly, and re- flect on what we are putting aside, as well as what we are embracing. Because with- out a strong sense of our place in history, we are very small. And without learning from history, we can’t really learn.
Before you start on a journey through our Top 40 great ads, before you start thinking about the values to embrace or to challenge, here’s a wonderful quote about why it matters that we treasure and examine and constantly evolve our sense of history for our culture, and our industry. These words come from Lewis Lapham, a great American writer and editor who died in Rome in 2024 at the age of 89. He dedicated his later years to making the case for greater study and use of history to better understand the present and shape our future. We’ve been holding this quote close to us while working on this project:
You can’t live in the future because the future doesn’t exist, and the present comes to a close too quickly to leave a mailing address. The only present where you can find a ground of being is in the living past.
Now let’s explore and look for the diamonds in that living past that so fascinates readers of Lürzer’s Archive … click on the ads below to watch and read more.
