History

Black-figured lekythos with the inscription: “buy me and you'll get a good bargain”, ca. 550 BC, Louvre

Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of ancient Arabia. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. 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 BCE.^[4] As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly 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. However, false advertising and so-called "quack" advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.

Edo period advertising flyer from 1806 for a traditional medicine called Kinseitan

As the economy expanded during the 19th century, advertising grew alongside. In the United States of America, classified advertisements became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print messages promoting various goods. The success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.

In 1841, the first advertising agency was established by in Boston. It was also the first agency to charge a commission on ads at 25% commission paid by newspaper publishers to sell space to advertisers. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1875, and was located in Philadelphia.

At the turn of the 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 "The skin you love to touch".

A print advertisement for the 1913 issue of the Encyclopædia Britannica

When radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920s, the programs were however nearly exploded. This was so because the first radio stations were established by radio equipment manufacturers and retailers who offered programs in order to sell more radios to consumers. As time passed, many non-profit organizations followed suit in setting up their own radio stations, and included: schools, clubs and civic groups.^[5] When the practice of sponsoring programs was popularised, each individual radio program was usually sponsored by a single business in exchange for a brief mention of the business' name at the beginning and end of the sponsored shows. However, radio station owners soon realised they could earn more money by selling sponsorship rights in small time allocations to multiple businesses throughout their radio station's broadcasts, rather than selling the sponsorship rights to single businesses per show. This practice was carried over to television in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

A fierce battle was fought between those seeking to commercialise the radio and people who argued that the radio spectrum should be considered a part of the commons – to be used only non-commercially and for the public good. The United Kingdom pursued a public funding model for the BBC, originally a private company but incorporated as a public body by Royal Charter in 1927. In Canada, advocates like Graham Spry were likewise able to persuade the federal government to adopt a public funding model. However, in the United States, the capitalist model prevailed with the passage of the 1934 Communications Act which created the Federal Communications Commission.^[6] To placate the socialists, the U.S. Congress did require commercial broadcasters to operate in the "public interest, convenience, and necessity".^[7] Nevertheless, public radio does exist in the United States of America.

In the early 1950s, the Dumont television network began the modern trend of selling advertisement time to multiple sponsors. Previously, Dumont had trouble finding sponsors for many of their programs and compensated by selling smaller blocks of advertising time to several businesses. This eventually became the norm for the commercial television industry in the United States. However, it was still a common practice to have single sponsor shows, such as the U.S. Steel Hour. In some instances the sponsors exercised great control over the content of the show - up to and including having one's advertising agency actually writing the show. The single sponsor model is much less prevalent now, a notable exception being the Hallmark Hall of Fame.

The 1960s saw advertising transform into a modern, more scientific approach in which creativity was allowed to shine, producing unexpected messages that made advertisements more tempting to consumers' eyes. The Volkswagen ad campaign--featuring such headlines as "Think Small" and "Lemon" (which were used to describe the appearance of the car)--ushered in the era of modern advertising by promoting a "position" or "unique selling proposition" designed to associate each brand with a specific idea in the reader or viewer's mind. This period of American advertising is called the Creative Revolution and its poster boy was Bill Bernbach who helped create the revolutionary Volkswagen ads among others. Some of the most creative and long-standing American advertising dates to this incredibly creative period.

Public advertising on Times Square, New York City.

The late 1980s and early 1990s saw the introduction of cable television and particularly MTV. Pioneering the concept of the music video, MTV ushered in a new type of advertising: the consumer tunes in for the advertising message, rather than it being a byproduct or afterthought. As cable and satellite television became increasingly prevalent, specialty channels emerged, including channels entirely devoted to advertising, such as QVC, Home Shopping Network, and .

Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search engine Google revolutionized online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.

The share of advertising spending relative to GDP has changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the U.S. in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about 2.9%. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower -- about 2.4%.[1]

A recent advertising innovation is "guerrilla promotions", which involve unusual approaches such as staged encounters in public places, giveaways of products such as cars that are covered with brand messages, and interactive advertising where the viewer can respond to become part of the advertising message. This reflects an increasing trend of interactive and "embedded" ads, such as via product placement, having consumers vote through text messages, and various innovations utilizing social networking sites (e.g. MySpace).

Paul McManus, the Creative Director of TBWAEurope in the late 90's summed up advertising as being "...all about understanding. Understanding of the brand, the product or the service being offered and understanding of the people (their hopes and fears and needs) who are going to interact with it. Great advertising is the creative expression of that understanding."^{[citation needed]}

Don Sheelan, Regina CEO argues that; "the most important objective of any advertising is building brand awareness."

Branding

Although advertising has existed for a long time, explicit "branding" is a product of the late 1800s. Because of the prevalence of dangerous products and unregulated industries of the Industrial Revolution, brands were introduced to increase the reputation and value of a particular manufacturer. An identified brand often meant safety and quality and led to popularity.

Mobile Billboard Advertising

Mobile Billboards are flat-panel campaign units in which their sole purpose is to carry advertisements along dedicated routes selected by clients prior to the start of a campaign. Mobile Billboard companies do not typically carry third-party cargo or freight. Mobile displays are used for various situations in metropolitan areas throughout the world, including:

• Target advertising
• One day, and long term campaigns
• Convention
• Sporting events
• Store openings or other similar promotional events
• Big advertisements from smaller companies

Product advertising

Certain products use a specific form of advertising known as "Custom publishing". This form of advertising is usually targeted at a specific segment of society, but may also "draw" the attention of others. The lists are presented in the following box:

References

Bibliography

• Anthony,A,Abdo AU (2007) professor, history and geography
• Bhatia, Tej K. 2000. Advertising in Rural India: Language, Marketing Communication, and Consumerism. Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. Tokyo Press: Japan.
• Graydon, Shari (2003) "Made You Look - How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know", Toronto: Annick Press,
• Johnson, J. Douglas, "Advertising Today", Chicago: Science Research Associates, 1978.
• Klein, Naomi (2000) No Logo . Harper-Collins,
• Kleppner, Otto, "Advertising Procedure", Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1966.
• Kotabe, Masaki and Kristiaan Helsen, Global Marketing Management, 3rd Edition, John Wiley & Sopns, Inc, publishers, Copyright 2004,
• Lears, Jackson, Fables of Abundance: A Cultural History of Advertising in America, Basic Books, 1995,
• Leon, Jose Luis (1996) "Los efectos de la publicidad". Barcelona: Ariel,
• Leon, Jose Luis (2001) "Mitoanálisis de la publicidad". Barcelona. Ariel,
• Mulvihill, Donald F., "Marketing Research for the Small Company", Journal of Marketing, Vol. 16, No. 2, Oct., 1951, pp. 179-183.
• Young, Charles E., The Advertising Handbook, Ideas in Flight, Seattle, WA April 2005,
• Wernick, Andrew (1991) "Promotional Culture: Advertising, Ideology and Symbolic Expression (Theory, Culture & Society S.)", London: Sage Publications Ltd,

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

Advertising

Look up advertising in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Wikibooks' [[wikibooks:|]] has more about this subject:

Marketing

• On-Line exhibits at William F. Eisner Museum of Advertising and Design
• The British Library - finding information on the advertising industry
• aef.com online advertising exhibits and resources not found elsewhere
• Bibliography on Web Advertising

Vintage archives

• Ad*Access, Duke University Library
• Archive Advertisements from Old Theatre Programmes
• Retro Cars Advertisements - 19 Posters from the 19th International Motor Exhibition, 1925.