Brief history of Advertising

Advertising industry is greatly developed today and is supposed to be originated in the seventeenth century, mainly with classified ads in the newspapers. Early advertisements did not contain the jazzy attractive stuff we have today. It was not until the late nineteenth century that the ads came out more in open with simple descriptions, prices stated and their uses. As the technological developments happened they became more illustrative with colors, designs, concepts, themes, and other options.

The earliest of examples I have here is of pears soap when Thomas Baratt realized to push their product in the market if they were to survive. He made much effort to make it a big success by featuring children in the ads, including fine arts in the ad to maintain its brand purity it holds today. When we talk about brief history of advertising we cannot forget him (Thomas Baratt) as the father of modern advertising. The latter part of nineteenth century saw great emergence of varied advertising agencies turning themselves in to professional institutions with their own way and style of working. They had creative ideas, which sold like hot cakes in the crowded marketplace where everyone was striving to survive. The World War I came as great booster to advertising industry as government started using it as a tool to set their agenda; the British and Americans used advertisement as a propaganda convincing its citizen to fight for the war. This bought around a complete mechanization that increased cost which were supposed to be paid somehow and thus created a need amongst consumer to dominate the advertising industry in the year 1920.

Twentieth century saw much relevance on advertisements which had captured almost whole mass media including cinemas, radio, commercial messaging, these were the early signs of working effectively when the great depression came with the crash of Wall St which put an end to the emerging ideas and markets. It was not until the year 1950 that the consumers had enough disposable income to respond to the needs of creative artists and the great depression and World War two made the matter worst. The affluence of postwar bought around a new glut of material goods for which the demand had to be created, and televisions became the hottest consumer property. Every American home had a television and were soon followed by advertisers in every nook and corner of the country. America was much ahead of the UK and Europe allowing broadcasting of commercial TV stations. Soon it lead to ethical compromise of the sponsored shows and it was decided by Sylvester Weaver, NBC executive that instead of selling the whole shows to advertisers, they will provide small blocks of advertising to broadcast. So different advertisers could buy the time in a single show and hence the content of the show moved out of control of a single advertiser very similar to the print magazine. This soon became famous as a magazine concept and thus the word “commercial break” as we refer today.

When we talk about brief history of advertising, it includes a deeper arena, which has responded well to changing business demands, cultural context and media technologies. Many historians have used advertisements as a tool to examine the resistance, check on the skills, health, and varied other characteristics pertaining to men and women. The mid nineteenth century did not see much of striking advertisement appeals despite the market revolution. The manufacturers of potions and pills vied for attention by putting dramatic advertisements. The consumer industry introduced new techniques of production offering standardized products persuading buyers in to buying items through national advertising.

The famous departmental stores Wanamaker, Macy’s and Marshall field in varied cities started making use of advertising to market their products. The total advertising volume in US alone jumped from $200 million in the year 1880 to $3 billion in the year 1920. As the industry grew, it gave rise to modern anxiety relating to social and ethical implications. People by and large relied on advertisements before buying any products, thanks to the mass circulation of magazines, radio broadcasting to reach the consumers. The modern technological developments are way ahead of what we would have imagined 80 years ago. There are men and women who still fight for advertisements to maintain their social status in the community. The brief history of advertising describes us the techniques and methods used by the advertisers to vie for attention in the markets; there was emergence of face-to-face selling, personal calling, newspaper advertisements, etc.