The Droste Effect: The Ad That Keeps On Giving

From Season 4 of Madmen:


Sally: I just felt like I was going to heaven, except I don't believe in it.

Glenn: You don't? Then what happens when you die? Nothing?

Sally: It doesn't really bother me, except that it's forever. When I think about forever, I get upset. Like the Land O Lakes butter has that Indian girl...sitting holding a box. And it has a picture of her on it holding a box, with a picture of her holding a box. Have you ever noticed that?

Glenn: I wish you wouldn't have said that.

Like Sally from Madmen, for most children, infinity is a serious matter. You reach the point where your brain allows you to look beyond the confines of everyday life and you suddenly have infinity staring you right in the face and it's there to stay.

This implied infinity of images has a name, the Droste Effect, named for the Droste Cacao company which used the effect in their advertising in 1904. If you look around you, it's used more than you realize. Why? What better way to have the vision of your product continue in the observer's mind forever...the ad that never ends.

Smile...you've just been Drosted.