Evolution of Advertising

Evolution of Advertising

In the past, word of mouth was the most common way to get the word out. Archaeologists have found a clay tablet from Babylon that was written on in 3000 BC. It shows a shoemaker, a scribe, and an ointment dealer. Messages for businesses and political campaigns have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. For example, little shops used to have signs on the walls near the entrances to tell people what they sold.

The Egyptians used papyrus to make sales letters and posters for the walls. One of these notices was found in the ruins of Thebes. It offered rewards for the return of slaves who had run away. In Greece and Rome, it was common to put lost-and-found ads on papyrus. Advertising on walls or rocks is an ancient form of outdoor advertising that is still used in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America today.

For example, wall paintings have been around since Indian rock art, which dates back to 4000 BC. The Phoenicians used to paint business messages on large rocks along trade routes that were often used. Town crying was another way to get the word out. It was used in Greece and India, where people were paid to go around towns and spread news and make announcements.

During the 15th and 16th centuries, when printing got better, especially after Johann Gutenberg made movable type in 1438, advertising grew. About 40 years after this invention, William Caxton of London put out a handbill with rules for the clergy to follow at Easter. This was the first known print ad in English. In about 1525, a mysterious drug was praised in a German news pamphlet that was printed on a sheet and passed around.

After this, the number of newspapers grew quickly. The Weekly News of London was the first English newspaper to come out in 1622. In 1625, the first ad showed up in an English newspaper. In America, the first ad to offer a reward for catching a thief was put in the Boston Newsletter in 1704. In England in the 17th century, weekly newspapers called “mercuries” started coming out. They had a lot of ads, most of which were announcements from the people who brought new things to England, like coffee in 1652, chocolate in 1657, and tea the following year.

The printing press made books more affordable, so most of the other print ads were used to sell medicines and books (which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe). But fake ads and so-called “quack” ads became a problem, which led to rules about what can be said in ads.

During the 19th century, when the economy was growing, so was the need for advertising. In the U.S., classified ads became popular, filling newspaper pages with small messages about all sorts of goods. Mail-order advertising, such as the Sears Catalog, which was once called the “Farmer’s Bible,” grew because of the success of this type of advertising.
Volney Palmer started the first advertising agency in Philadelphia in 1843. He worked as an agent for around 1400 newspapers. He used to only sell space to advertisers. He didn’t help clients with creative work or account planning. But by the 20th century, agencies were no longer just selling ad space in newspapers; they were also in charge of what was written.

The Early years of Advertising in America:

1. 1843: Volney B. Palmer opens the first American advertising agency, in Philadelphia.
2. 1852: First advertisement for Smith Brother’s Cough Candy (drops) appears in a Poughkeepsie, New York paper – the two brothers in the illustration are named “Trade” and “Mark.”
3. 1856: Mathew Brady advertises his services of “photographs, ambrotypes and daguerreotypes” in the New York Herald paper. His inventive use of type in the ad goes against the newspaper industry standard of all-agate and all same-size type used for advertisements in the papers.
4. 1856: Robert Bonner is the first to run a full-page ad in a paper, advertising his own literary paper, the New York Ledger.
5. 1861: There are twenty advertising agencies in New York City.
6. 1864: William James Carlton begins selling advertising space in newspapers, founding the agency that later became the J. Walter Thompson Company, the oldest American advertising agency in continuous existence.
7. 1865: George P. Rowell and his friend Horace Dodd open their advertising agency in Boston.
8. 1867: Lord & Taylor is the first company to use double-column advertising in newspapers.
9. 1869: N. W. Ayer and Sons advertising agency is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the following year begins advertising its own agency in both general and trade publications.
10. 1869: E. C. Allan starts the People’s Literary Companion, marking the beginning of the “mail­order” periodical.
11. 1869: The first advertisement for Sapolio soap is published.
12. 1869: George P. Rowell issues the first Rowell’s American Newspaper Directory, providing advertisers with information on the estimated circulation of papers and thus helping to standardize value for space in advertising.
13. 1860s – Advertising begins to appear in nationally distributed monthly magazines.
14. 1870 – 5,091 newspapers are in circulation, compared to 715 in 1830.
15. 1872 – Montgomery Ward begins mail order business with the issue of its first catalog.
16. 1879 – John Wanamaker places the first whole-page newspaper advertisement by an American department store.
17. 1870s – Charles E. Hires begins advertising Hires Root Beer in the Philadelphia Ledger, expanding over the next two decades into national magazines.
18. 1870s – $1 million dollars is spent annually advertising Lydia Pinkham’s Pink Pills.
19. 1870s – Louis Prang, a lithographer and printer, develops the idea of mass-producing small “trade cards” that could be adapted to the needs of individual advertisers at low cost. Thread companies, such as Clark’s O.N.T., are among the first to begin nationwide distribution of advertising trade cards.
20. 1870s – In response to the high volume of outdoor advertising (including posters and signs painted on rocks, buildings and barns) in cities and rural areas, several states begin to impose limitations to protect natural scenery from sign painters.
21. 1880 – John Wanamaker hires John E. Powers, who brings a fresh style to advertising – an honest, direct and fresh appeal emphasizing the style, elegance, comfort and luxury of products. Powers is later called “the father of honest advertising.”
22. 1886 – Sears, Roebuck & Company begins mail-order business.
23. 1880s – Illustrated trade cards reach the height of their popularity, not only with advertisers but also with the American public, which becomes remarkably interested in collecting them.
24. 1890 – J. Walter Thompson Company’s billings total over one million dollars.
25. 1891 – The precursor organization to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America (OAAA) is created under the name Associated Bill Posters Association of United States and Canada. OAAA is not used as the organizational name until 1925.
26. 1891 – Batten and Co. advertising agency is founded by George Batten in New York, merging with another agency in 1928 to form Batten, Barton, Durstine and Osborne (BBDO).
27. 1891 – Nathan Fowler, in Advertising Age, recommends that because women make most of the purchasing decisions of their household, manufacturers would do well to direct their advertising messages to them.
28. 1900 – 1920
29. 1902 – Packard begins use of the long-lasting slogan “Ask the man who owns one.”
30. 1902 – Unilever hires the J. Walter Thompson Company for advertising Lifebuoy Soap and later Lux and other products in America. Unilever is still with J. Walter Thompson and represents the oldest client relationship in the advertising industry.
31. 1904 – Cigarette coupons are first used as a draw for a new chain of tobacco stores.
32. 1914 – The first full-length feature comedy motion picture, Tillie’s Punctured Romance, stars Marie Dresser, Mabel Normand, and newcomer Charlie Chaplin.
33. 1917 – A massive advertising campaign for Lucky Strike tobacco gets underway, employing the slogan “It’s Toasted.”
34. 1917 – The American Association of Advertising Agencies is formed.

During the 1960s, advertising became more modern and scientific, and creativity was allowed to shine. This led to unexpected messages that made ads more interesting to look at. The Volkswagen ad campaign with headlines like “Think Small” and “Lemon” was the first modern ad campaign. It promoted a “position” or “unique selling proposition” for each brand, which was meant to make the reader or viewer think of that brand with a certain idea.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, cable TV and MTV, in particular, came on the scene. MTV was the first to come up with the idea of a music video, which led to a new kind of advertising in which the consumer watches the show for the ads instead of as an afterthought. As cable and, later, satellite TV became more popular, “specialty” channels started to appear. Eventually, whole channels like QVC, Home Shopping Network, and Shop TV were made to advertise products, and again, people watched just to see the ads.

Internet marketing gave advertisers access to new markets and led to the “dot-com” boom of the 1990s. Companies that only made money from advertising did things like give away coupons and free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, Google changed the way online advertising worked by putting more emphasis on ads that were relevant to the context and didn’t bother users. This has led to a lot of similar efforts and a growing trend of interactive advertising.

Even though media has changed a lot, the amount of money spent on advertising as a percentage of GDP hasn’t changed much. For example, newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters were the main ways to advertise in the United States in 1925. About 2.6% of the U.S. GDP was spent on advertising in 1925. By 1998, TV and radio were two of the most important ways to advertise. Still, the amount spent on advertising as a percentage of GDP was about 2.4% lower.

“Guerrilla promotions” are a new type of advertising that uses unusual methods like staged meetings in public places, giving away products like cars that are covered in brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the ad message. This is part of a growing trend toward interactive and “embedded” ads, such as product placement, text message voting, and new ways to use social networking sites like MySpace and Orkut.

Pears Soap was one of the first things to do well with advertising. Thomas Barratt married into a famous soap-making family and saw that they needed to push their products harder if they wanted to stay in business. He started a series of ads with cute children that still reflect the brand’s values today. He also used images that were considered “fine art” to show the brand’s quality, purity (not tainted by advertising), and simplicity (cherubic children). Many people call him the “father of modern advertising.”

But it wasn’t until the end of the 19th century, when advertising agencies started to pop up, that advertising became a full-fledged institution with its own ways of working and creative standards. These agencies were made because the market was getting more and more crowded, and companies realised they had to promote their products if they wanted to stay in business. They told their clients that they were experts in communication and then left them to get on with making things.

During World War I, advertising made some big steps forward because governments on both sides used it to spread their message. The British used propaganda in the form of ads to get their own people to fight and to get the Americans to join. Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf that Germany lost the war because it lost the propaganda war. When it was his turn, he did not make the same mistake. One of the other effects of World War I was that industry became more mechanized, which led to higher costs that had to be paid for in some way. This is why, starting in the 1920s, advertising starts to focus on making the consumer want something.

Advertising was quick to use the new mass media that came out in the first half of the 20th century. Movies and, even more so, radio were used to spread commercial messages. Here, you can listen to some old radio ads (RealPlayer is required). In the 1920s, this seemed to be working, but the Wall Street Crash ended widespread prosperity, and the Great Depression and World War II meant that people didn’t have enough money to really respond to advertisers’ messages of creating needs until the 1950s.

The average person was better off after World War II, but the 1950s also brought a lot of new things that people didn’t need. The TV wasn’t the least of these things. It quickly became the most popular thing to buy in America, and no home could be without one. And wherever the sets went, the ads went with them, spreading dreams about how buying things will make life better in millions of American homes.

With government-controlled broadcasting, the UK and Europe were about a decade behind the US in letting commercial TV stations go on the air. There are still tighter rules about sponsorship and how much editorial control advertisers can have over a show. This is because of some big scandals in the US, in which sponsors changed the questions and answers on quiz shows to make their products seem sexier.

Sylvester Weaver, an executive at NBC, didn’t like how the single sponsor show compromised ethics. So he came up with the idea of selling advertisers small chunks of broadcast time instead of whole shows. If more than one advertiser bought time on the same show, the show’s content would no longer be controlled by a single advertiser, much like a print magazine. This became known as the “magazine concept” or “participation advertising” because many different advertisers could use it.