Theophilus Van Kannel of Philadelphia was granted a patent on August 7, 1888 on the revolving door. It took eleven years for the first actual revolving door to be installed, at Rector's, a restaurant on Times Square in Manhattan. Since then, revolving doors have adorned the entrances to large offices and hotels around the world. Now, for the past year, they have become focal points with the addition of advertising.

Below are six examples of both successful and unsuccessful recent ad campaigns using revolving doors:



Revolving Door Ad 1. The Blender, Canada

Taxi Canada cooked up this creative campaign for McCain Foods in Spring 2007 to publicize its new Smooth-eez blended drinks. The revolving doors in Toronto and Calgary were designed to give the sense of being inside a blender. According to Irfan Kahn, associate creative director at Taxi Canada, kids were immediately drawn to them. Overall, the campaign was so successful, they are thinking of repeating this Spring.

Source: Media Life Magazine

Revolving Door Ad 2. Child Labor, Netherlands

March 26, 2008, one hundred children demonstrated and visited embassies and the Dutch House of Parliament to raise awareness the child labor issue. In support of their efforts, World Vision pasted life-sized adhesives of children on automatic revolving doors in Amsterdam. Above the child, the copy reads: "You can't ignore child labour."

Source: Trendhunter

I would agree. It's impossible to ignore the imploring faces of the children.

The remainder of revolving door ads were released in Spring 2007. The fact that there have been so few repeated makes me wonder at their effectiveness.

Revolving Door Ad 3. Keeps Going and Going, Turkey

From Healthy People, we get these revolving door adhesives which impart the image of a man appearing to run around and around. The focus was on Pharmaton's "everlasting energy" and the goal was to direct consumers to the "End Fatigue" website. Frankly, running endless circles seems quite fatiguing to me.

Source: Ads of the World





Revolving Door Ad 4. Front and Back, Phillipines

BBDO Guerrero Ortega strategically placed these Mitsubishi stickers on automatically revolving doors, allowing consumers to interact with the front and back of their vehicle. The consensus seems to be that the ads make it look like the people are being forced to push the car, as though it had broken down. My opinion, this doesn't make for a great message.

Source: Ads of the World

Revolving Door Ad 5. Perfectly Poised, New York

This revolving door ad was strategically placed to give a sense of a ballerina twirling. The promotion, designed by Saatchi & Saatchi, New York, promoted the Jeffery Ballet School. .

Source: Got Ads





Revolving Door Ad 6. Catch Me If you Can, Hong Kong

The Grey Agency came up with this movie promotion for "Catch Me If You Can," starring Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio. Adhesives of the men running round and round chasing each other were placed on these revolving doors in Hong Kong.

Source: Ads of the World

What do you think of these spinning ads? Are they memorable? Know of any other creative advertising uses of revolving doors? Any of these you consider a flop?

Sources: Wikipedia. Many thanks to Amy Gifford for the significant amound of work she did on this piece.