The history of advertising

Here is an interesting article on the history of advertising - Advertising, the art of determining the right message and making it known to the right target audience , belongs to the modern industrial world and to those countries which are developing and becoming industrialized. In the past when a shopkeeper or stall-holder had only to show and shout his goods to passers-by, advertising as we know today hardly existed. The history of advertising shows that early forms of advertising were signs such as the inn sign, the red-and-white striped barber's pole, the apothecary's jar of coloured liquid and the wheelwright's wheel, some of which have survived until today.

In fact, the history of advertising goes way back and the advertising industry has been in existence since the end of the 17th century, when newssheets carried printed advertisements for products and information. Merchants returning from voyages overseas needed to generate markets for the products they imported – so they advertised. Early advertisements may have been fairly in style, but they did show many of the characteristics of the modern descendants in that they attempted to deliver information economically and in a visually arresting way. More on the "history of advertising" below:

The need for advertising developed with the expansion of population and the growth of towns with their shops and large stores, with the growth of mass production in factories and also with the development of roads and railways to convey goods and popular newspapers in which to advertise. The large quantities of goods being produced were made known by means of advertising to unknown customers who lived far from the place of manufacture. This process developed some two hundred years ago in industrialized countries. (Frank Jefkins, 1998)

By the end of the 19 th century, advertising was big business, as different hisotrical advertising documents show. Agencies, whose primary function was to create and disseminate advertisements on behalf of client companies, sprang up. Newspapers, realizing what a money-spinner advertising could be, dedicated more space to display ads. As newspaper circulation grew and literacy levels improved, the potential for reaching large audiences with news of products and services was enormous and the history of advertising show us a clear ascending trend for the importance of advertising.

Advertising history and development

The new science of psychology enabled practitioners to explore what stimulated a response in audiences, thus making the whole process more sophisticated. This hastened the move away from information-led to image-led advertisements, where a single picture could be used to tell a story or communicate a complex message.

Advertisements rapidly began to dominate newspapers and the increasingly popular women's magazines. Posters were commonplace and spawned a whole art form. But it was a new communication technology that gave the industry its biggest boost - a dominant turning point in the history of advertising.

Modern advertising exploits every medium of communication. We tend to think of ads in terms of the “mainstream media”, such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines, but other methods are increasingly being used to ‘spread the word'. Posters and billboards, point-of-sale displays, direct selling and cold-calling by phone and fax are all readily accessible for the advertisers. Teletext services are used to send information and advertisements into any home that has a compatible television set. (Karen Holmes, p. 6, 2000)

Modern advertising history

Perhaps the biggest development in recent years is the expansion of advertising on the Internet. This has massive potential in that it taps into worldwide audiences; it offers new fields for creativity and a facility for direct response from those who see the ads – and it is very hard to ignore.

Thus, the modern world depends on advertising. Without it, producers and distributors would be unable to sell, buyers would not know about and continue to remember products or services and the modern industrial world collapse. If factory output is to be maintained profitably, advertising must be powerful and continuous. Mass production requires mass consumption, which in turn requires advertising to the mass market through the mass media. (Frank Jefkins, 1998)

Who knows where the present times will stand in the future history of advertising, but the industry keeps us on our tip toes at all times.