History of advertising

Advertising is a form of marketing communication used to persuade an audience to take or continue some action, usually with respect to a commercial offering, or politics or ideological support.

In Egypt, they used to use papyrus to make sales messages and wall posters. Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii and ancient Arabia. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. The tradition of wall painting can be traced back to Indian rock art paintings that date back to 4000 BC.

In Europe, as the towns and cities of the Middle Ages began to grow, fruits and vegetables were sold in the city square from the backs of carts and waggons and their proprietors used street callers (town criers) to announce their whereabouts for the convenience of the customers. The first compilation of such advertisements was gathered in "Les Crieries de Paris".

In England during the 18th century, advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers, mainly used to promote books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe.

In the 19th Century, Thomas J. Barratt from London has been called "the father of modern advertising". Working for the Pears Soap company, he created an effective advertising campaign for the company products, which involved the use of targeted slogans, images and phrases. He introduced many of the crucial ideas that lie behind successful advertising and these were widely circulated in his day. He stated that "tastes change, fashions change, and the advertiser has to change with them. Not that the idea of today is always better than the older idea, but it is different - it hits the present taste." 

In June 1836, the French newspaper La Presse was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied by all titles. The advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded in the late 19th century. They offered to plan, create and execute complete advertising campaigns for its customers. The advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning by 1900, and advertising was firmly established as a profession. This advertising agency opened in 1869, and was located in Philadelphia.

In the 20th century, advertising increased dramatically in the United States as industrialisation expanded the supply of manufactured products. In the 1910's and 1920's, advertisers in the U.S adopted the doctrine that human instincts could be targeted and harnessed - ""sublimated" into the desire to purchase commodities. Edwards Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, became associated with the methods and is sometimes called the founder of modern advertising and public relations. In October 1929, the head of the U.S Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Julius Klein stated "Advertising is the key to world prosperity."

The tobacco companies became major advertisers in order to sell packaged cigarettes. The tobacco companies pioneered the new advertising techniques when they hired Bernays to create positive associations with tobacco smoking.

At the turn of the 20th century, there were few career choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were responsible for most of the purchasing done in their household, advertisers and agencies recognised the value of women's insight during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman - for a soap product. Although tame by today's standards, the advertisement featured a couple with the message "A skin you love to touch."

In the early 1920's, the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programmes in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passes, many non-profit organisations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: clubs, civic groups and schools.

In early 1950's, the DuMont Television Network began the modern practise of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, DuMont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programmes and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several business, which eventually became the standard for the commercial television industry in the United States.

The late 1980's and early 1990's saw the introduction of cable television, particularly MTV. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, speciality channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and ShopTV Canada.

With the advent of the ad server, marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990's. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access.