History of Advertising

History of Advertising

It is difficult to trace the history of advertising, because the nature and definition of advertising have changed drastically over time.

The evolution of advertising in the west can be known in the terms of the various phases of the growth of advertising, are as follows:

Advertising in the pre-printing era:

History of advertising goes back to about 5000 years including the modern satellite and internet age.

·       The digging by archaeologists, in countries rimming the Mediterranean Sea, has unearthed the Babylonian clay tablet of about 3000 BC, bearing the inscription for an ointment dealer and a shoemaker.

Before the invention of the printing there were three forms of advertising:

1.   Trademarks: Craftsmen, in early times, wanted to be identified for their skills and their individual marks on goods that they crafted. Buyers learnt to look for distinctive marks just as we look today for the brands and trademarks on the products.

2.   Signs: Phoenicians, and other traders, painted commercial messages on prominent rocks along trade routes.

3.   Town criers: this system of town criers was perhaps, present in all developed civilizations of the ancient world. In Greece, during the Golden Age, town criers were paid to go around the town spreading news and making announcements. Epics and history books about the ancient India reveals that the rulers used the system of town criers in India to inform the public of various public interest matters. In rural India, towns’ criers were used till as late as the 1950’s.

·       In the pre printing era, some form of advertising, through signboards and town criers, did exist. The sign boards were used to identify the places, traders and artisans and to inform people about the location of certain goods and services.

`    For example: the symbol of goat signified a dairy; a mule working a mill signified a bakery; a cobbler would hang the shoe outside his shop to signify the shoe shop ; thousands of year ago, the Greeks used criers to announce the sale of slaves.

·       Advertisement began with the invention of the printing press in 1441. Newspaper began as a medium for advertisements.

·       The first ad, in any language, to be printed on a circulated sheet appeared in German news pamphlets in about 1525.

·       The first advertisement printed in English newspaper came out in 1625.

·       The first ad in America appeared in 1704 in the Boston Newsletter.

·       According to Longman, newspapers carries news item and small classified type advertisement in the latter part of the 18^th century. The Times, carry the advertisements on page till 1966.

·       The first visible signs of advertising came in the form of advertising hand cards and later posters, now days known as leaflets, hand cards carrying information about the goods and services sold by various merchants were distributed on the streets.

·       In 19^th century, so many posters were pasted on the walls of London that it look city made of paper. United Kingdom also follows the same pattern.

The Industrial Revolution/ Development of Modern Advertisement

·       With the industrial revolution, the market was flooded with similar products. The use of expensive machinery required production and consumption on large scale. With similar products available, companies needed persuasive communication to create demand for particular brands and this made advertising more widespread.

·       In the late 19^th century, advertising witnessed magazines becoming an important advertising medium.

·       The invention of bicycle gave rise to competitive advertising according to Cohen 1988.

·       At the same, when some medicines were patented, the idea of brand was born. Dr. Drake and Dr. Lydia Pinkham have introduced medicines to advertisement.

·        Advertisement began in mid 19^th century. Volney B Palmer was the first advertising agent who established an office in Philadelphia. For a fee, he worked as an agent for 1400 newspapers. He sold the space to the advertisers throughout the country. He did not provide any creative service to the client, except the media selection.

·       Advertising historians consider John Powers to be the first copywriting ‘superstar’ in the 1880’s.

·       J.Walter Thompson, a young advertising executive, signed an exclusive contract with twenty five of the best Amercian magazines. He is also known as the inventor of the modern advertising agency.

·       During the 1920’s, modern marketing research entered the world of advertising. As a result of this new development, advertising in this period started stressing on the outcomes of consumer purchases such as health, happiness, status and love etc. Print Advertisement contains the bold headline, artwork, photography and plenty of colour.

·       Before the severe depression of the 1920’s radio was not being used for advertising. Though during this time commercial was emerged but no advertisement was started.

Contemporary Advertisement

Most of the growth in advertising has happened after Second World War. Excessive mechanized production and serious efforts to rebuild nations and economies were under ways. Western Europe and the Far East started to compete in world markets and advertising became an essential part of this new economies. Large economies like General Motors, Coca Cola and IBM had long been active in all over the world.

·       After 1946, quite a number of medium and small companies entered the international market.

·       Large advertising agencies of USA, Western Europe and the Far East started opening their offices in several countries.

·       During 1950’s Specialist In market research, sales promotion, merchandising and public Relations started running the advertising industry. Creativity in advertising was almost nonexistent till then and ads were mostly “me too” type of messages with lot of wordy visualization a small copy.

·       It is during this time Rosser Reeves of Ted Bates Agency was the first most successful among copywriters. He originated the concept of USP (Unique Selling Proposition).