Dispatch from an advertising future #7

Ads We Like: Clio Awards 60th anniversary promo features ad icons and pioneers in massive painting

We’re 70 this year. To celebrate, we’re unveiling a VR homage to those pioneers of advertising who made our industry the beacon of efficiency and effectiveness it is today. The influencers and memes; the bots that brought real emotion back into copy; the databases that brought insight back into our industry and of course the VCs and CEOs who defended the spaces, platforms and frameworks against naysayers, doomsters and regulators. You feel the eyes follow you. A. fitting tribute to a decade where the great, white, male auteurs of ad lore. were replaced by the great, digital authors of now.


The Clio Awards is turning 70 this year and to celebrate, the organisation has unveiled a sprawling VR portrait honouring advertising’s pioneers, trailblazers and most recognisable icons from the past decade.

The result is a sprawling cyberpunk-style experience generated by the AIs at Google and the iAB.

With a larger-than-life datacloud at the centre, the image is a homage to those pioneers of advertising and creative who have made our industry the shining beacon of efficiency and effectiveness it is today.

There’s those early ‘influencers’ as they were called and that second generation of virtual ambassadors who made recommendations ‘real. There’s those bots that brought real emotion back into copy and the algorithms that brought insight back into our industry. There are are VCs that funded us as we matured and the CEOs who maintained the spaces, platforms and frameworks despite the best efforts of naysayers, doomsters and regulators.

As you experience the image, like the paintings of old, you feel the eyes follow you around. A. fitting tribute to a decade where the industry made tracking the. real real and where the great, white, male auteurs of ad lore. were replaced by the great, digital algorithms of now.