Short History of Advertising

By the time the Middle Ages came along, towns and cities had grown considerably and local merchants needed a way of advertising their services to the local populace. Since the vast majority of customers were illiterate, signs needed to be kept very simple and usually consisted of an image associated with the particular trade, such as a horse shoe for a blacksmith or a bag of flour for a miller.
Once reading and writing skills became more widespread, advertising developed to include handbills and advertisements in newspapers. By the 17th century, many weekly newspapers in England featured small advertisements to promote books and other printed goods.
Advertisements featuring medicines also became very popular during this period as disease was rampant across Europe. Unfortunately, many unscrupulous individuals took advantage of this fact and false advertising and “quack” adverts featuring products that were useless became a big problem. As a result, advertising content eventually became subject to regulations.

The first paid advertising in newspapers appeared in a French newspaper in 1836. This formula was an overnight success as it allowed the newspaper to lower its cover price, which significantly expanded its readership. Other publications soon followed and around 1840, the precursor to the modern advertising agency was born as businesses began to recognize the power of the advertisement. By the early 20th century, advertising agencies were big business as the commercial marketplace became increasingly crowded with businesses trying to promote their products to consumers.
One early promotional advertising success story was Pears Soap. Thomas Barratt is widely considered to be the father of modern advertising and his iconic images of cherubic children are still firmly linked to the famous soap brand today.

World War I saw the next big shift in modern advertising as governments on all sides began to produce propaganda messages.
From the 1920s, the focus of advertising changed and instead of advertising products that consumers were already buying, advertising campaigns became more interested in encouraging consumers to buy products that were new to the market.
Mass media soon became the platform for modern advertising. Early radio advertising was extremely popular and to a certain extent, so was the cinema. By 1930, millions of families had radio sets in their homes and it was around this time that the “soap opera” was born as soap manufacturers sponsored radio dramas in return for their product being plugged on a regular basis.

A boom in consumer spending in the aftermath of the Second World War saw huge amounts of money poured into advertising. Advertising took full advantage of the new medium of television and consumers were tempted with endless images of fantastic goods available that they just had to have.
The 1950s were a boom time for the advertising industry and the big players became legends in their own lifetime. Theories of advertising from the period are still part of current thinking and many of the lessons learned back then still apply to today’s adverts.