Tiers of Advertising Decks

 I rate advertising in terms of the degree of customization. There's the extra elite, elite level, standard (either plus or standard standard), and basic?    

At the elite level, the advertisers' messages are on the back of the deck, the ace of spades, and the jokers.  Here's some examples:

The standard level tier of advertising deck has the advertising messaging on the back of the cards and the joker. There are standard plus ones where the joker is truly customized versus the standard standard ones where they have just made minor modifications to an existing joker design.  For instance, the Nintendo mermaid joker, pictured below gets minor customizations in the form of the the name and sometimes, the banner is customized.  

Standard Standard Advertising Jokers

An example of the Standard Plus tier of advertising jokers would be the Time4Learning SpellingCity deck in which the back and the jokers are truly customized but the ace of spades and other cards are standard. (Want info on the designing of this deck).

Time4Learning SpellingCity Playing Card Jokers

There are tons of examples of basic customization in which only backs are customized. Cheap and simple to do, these very minor customizations are the most common type of advertising deck. 

At the top level, there is extra elite advertising decks. In these cases, the advertiser has customized many or all of the cards in the deck. I think my favorite example of this is a deck by Braniff Airlines in which they provided the translations for phrases on each card.

Braniff Airlines Playing Cards

Want to see more about advertising decks of playing cards? Of course you do. You know you do. There is an article on one of my favorite vintage advertising deck - for Lewando's Cleaners and Dyers - plus these articles about different products being advertised.  

1. Casinos 
2. Cigarettes,  Liquor, Beer, Text jokers for drinks 
3. Desserts and Candy 
4. Coca Cola Jokers      
5. Cars 
6. Public Interest Messages, space science and technology
7. Logo type jokers, Geometric Designs Jokers featuring "Joker" 
8. Other types of advertising  this is where the Lewando joker will go (Text jokers are separate)
9. Jokers promoting playing cards , Ads for brands of playing cards