From the Poster to the Feed: How Advertising Changed (But Not Its Intent)
- Jul 13
- 4 min read
There was a time when advertising was on the streets: on huge billboards, hoardings, marquees, and shop windows that aimed to capture the gaze of passersby for a few seconds. Today, however, it is advertising that goes out to find us: it appears in our feed, adapts to our digital habits, and blends in with photos of friends, trips, and pets.
The evolution has been rapid. We’ve moved from paper to screens, from static formats to interactive ones, from physical print to algorithmic hyper-segmentation. Yet, despite all these changes, the essence remains: advertising has always wanted the same thing—to communicate, persuade, and stay in memory.
McDonald's Advertisements
At FotoProStudio, we observe this transformation from two fronts: as creators of images and as direct witnesses of how brands reinvent their visual strategies. And what's fascinating is that, although technology has redesigned formats, many of the visual, narrative, and emotional codes that worked decades ago are still relevant today.
INDEX:
1. Before: The Poster as the Main Stage
For over a century, the poster was the king of visual communication:
It was massive.
It occupied a physical space.
It competed for attention in a saturated urban environment.
It had to convey everything in a single glance.
Its design was conditioned by very specific elements: standardized sizes, flat colors that would withstand printing, bold fonts, and brief messages. The poster was, at its core, a visual shout: it needed to make an impact, from a distance, and in seconds.
Advertising Posters of Coca-Cola and Pepsi
The Poster Was a 'Moment'
The viewer passed by, saw it, or didn’t, and moved on. They couldn’t touch it, save it, comment on it, or forward it. That’s where the interaction ended.
2. Now: Advertising Lives in the Feed
In the era of infinite scrolling, the advertising image has become dynamic, ephemeral, adaptable, and measured to the millimeter. Instagram marked the beginning of an ecosystem where:
The image competes with thousands every minute.
Attention span is minimal.
The user interacts.
The message is built piece by piece: post, story, reel, carousel, video, copy, hashtags.
Coca-Cola and Pepsi Instagram Feed
The Feed is an Ecosystem, Not a Platform
It's no longer just about the main image. What matters now is how it coexists with the rest, how it integrates into the user's personal aesthetic, and how it adapts to algorithms.
The advertisement stopped being a “shout” and became a “presence”: a brief but repeated appearance that, hopefully, can become part of the user’s visual habit.
3. Visual Comparison: From Poster to Instagram Post
Aspect | Before (Poster) | Now (Instagram) |
Composition and Focus | • Large elements, few details, marked hierarchies.
|
|
Narrative and Storytelling | The story had to be condensed into a single image. | The story is fragmented into multiple formats:
|
Consumption and Interaction | Passive observation: the viewer would see the poster and continue on their way. | Constant interaction: the user no longer "looks"; now they:
This bidirectionality has transformed the relationship between brands and people. |
4. The advertising intent remains intact
Ads from the Stranger Things series
Although the formats have changed radically: from paper to screen, from the poster to the story, from mass advertising to personalized segmentation; the essence of advertising remains surprisingly the same. The tools evolve, consumption habits transform, and platforms multiply, but the emotional and strategic core remains intact.
Since the beginnings of commercial communication, advertising has pursued four main objectives that are still as relevant today as ever:
Capture attention,
Provoking an emotion,
Creating a connection,
Motivating an action.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a billboard from 1980 or a reel from 2025: the goal is to make the viewer react. It’s the eternal dance between seduction and strategy.
5. What does this mean for image creators?
Instagram feed and Adidas billboard advertisement
Photography work has changed profoundly:
1. The image must be multi-format
What was once designed for a billboard now must work in thumbnails, vertical stories, square ads, banners, responsive ads, etc.
2. The digital aesthetic is cleaner, more direct, and emotional
Visual overload is punished with scrolling. Clarity is rewarded with retention.
3. Photography is no longer an end but an intermediate point
The image is completed with:
Editing
Text
Animation
Strategy
User behavior
4. Measurement influences creation
Today, we know what works, how long it's viewed, and at what point it's abandoned. Creativity becomes smarter.
6. Final Reflection: Advertising changes in form, but not in soul
Car ads from the Lexus brand
The shift from the billboard to the feed is not just a technological change: it's a cultural change. The street and the screen are no longer separate: they feed off each other.
Big billboards still exist, but now they coexist with their digital versions, mobile extensions, and reinterpretations on social media.
Advertising no longer lives in a single place: it lives everywhere. And yet, its purpose has not changed at all. What matters is not the medium, but the ability of an image to connect with the viewer. That, yesterday and today, remains the true heart of the visual message.
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