Although the beginnings of advertising on vehicles are lost in the mists of time, mobile advertising is not an invention of today's marketers.
We will show you several photos from the interwar period, presenting various ideas
for using vehicles as advertising carriers.

April 1930, Fredry Street in Poznań.
According to the description, the photo shows a propaganda parade of the Poznań Society for the Support of Domestic Industry.
Today we would say it was part of a large-scale advertising campaign promoting Polish products. The campaign was indeed carried out for many years with great momentum.
The slogan "Polish products, from a Polish port, by a Polish ship" was realized before the war.
It's a pity that the Society for the Support of Domestic Industry no longer exists.
It's good that we are increasingly buying Polish products.

The thirties.
A truck for transporting bread.
The visible bakery advertisement on the car was made by hand - but there was no digital printing and self-adhesive foils yet.

Year 1933, Warsaw.
Propaganda car of the Air and Gas Defense League.
We can safely say that we are looking at a fragment of an ambient campaign, during which the advertising medium is used in an unusual way.

June 1929, Poznań, General National Exhibition.
Internal transport cart with an advertisement for “Kołłontay” soap. Today, most advertising budgets in outdoor advertising come from the telecommunications industry and retail chains.
In the interwar period in Poland, the sector related to broadly understood hygiene and the automotive industry spent the most money on this segment of advertising.

The thirties, Warsaw.
We've already covered advertisements on cars and those pulled by horses, now it's time for advertising on rails.
Tram line “6” hung with passengers, heading towards the Bródno Cemetery (Bródzieński). On the tram, you can see an advertisement: “Persil washes everything”.

And the same in Bydgoszcz (similarly in Lviv), so we can talk about a coordinated advertising campaign throughout the country.

The thirties, Bydgoszcz.
Advertisement for domestic textile products, organized by Maciejewski - the owner of the Department Store on Gdańska Street in Bydgoszcz. Old and new. That box on the right is a built-up tram. Well, original or rather unsafe ideas are not our invention.

October 1934, Katowice.
Savings Day advertised on a tram. We can say that this is a social campaign,
the young state did not have much money for pensions...

1938, interior of a PKP restaurant car with advertising boards visible in the upper part.
This is the last advertisement on tracks, it may not be exactly related to outdoor advertising, but it perfectly shows that certain forms of advertising remain unchanged.
Today we see similar advertisements in subway cars.

October 1930, Warsaw.
We return to car advertising. Here is a demonstration of an advertising car from the American film studio Paramount Picture for press representatives.

Year 1938, Śląska Street in Krakow.
Contrary to appearances, cars intended solely for advertising purposes were not invented by Jet Line.
Perhaps one of the first in Poland was a car with a rotating advertisement for the “Herbewo” S.A. Harliczek, Bełdowski and Wołoszyński cigarette tube factory.
Cigarette tubes (or cartridges) - paper tubes for cigarettes - are no longer advertised. Their place was first taken by cigarettes and now slowly by e-cigarettes.

August 1935, Warsaw.
The team of the “Warsaw Barber” theater at an advertising car in front of the editorial office of the Illustrated Daily Courier. Visible, among others, Zofia Terne, Jadwiga Andrzejewska, Irena Kwiatkowska, Stefania Górska, Fryderyk Jarossy. On the side stands a car with an advertisement for the theater.

November 1931, Poznań.
In the interwar period, social campaigns were organized several times to draw attention to road safety, including “Walking Learning Week”. A funeral company car with an advertising inscription warning against the tragic consequences of incorrect street crossing. “Walk according to regulations! - be careful on the road, otherwise you will fall into the snares of death and become our client”, “Funeral Home Brothers Nowak, Poznań Nowowiejski Square 10”. It looks a bit like a social campaign and an attempt to shock the recipient. Today we rather say: acting on emotions.

July 1934.
Finally, a bicycle with an advertisement for the Illustrated Daily Courier publishing house. One could say - here is the ancestor of JetBike!

It will soon be 100 years since these photos were taken. Much has changed: the car has become a common item of everyday use, new roads have been built, the metro...
Although the train from Krakow to Zakopane today takes longer than in 1939, this too is supposedly going to change soon. Meanwhile, in mobile advertising, we rely on old ideas. We only subject them to technological facelifts.

All photos come from the collections of the National Digital Archives.
Thank you very much to NAC for making them available!