evolution of advertising essay

The History of Advertising, Evolution, and Future

The history of advertising has experienced several major milestones – think the emergence of the printing press in the 1440s or the huge impact of television.

Since its very first beginnings, which are thought to date back to steel carvings made by the ancient Egyptians, advertising has constantly had to adapt and change to suit new mediums and an increasingly savvy audience.

But there’s been one medium that’s had a bigger impact on advertising than anything before it.

The wonderful World Wide Web.

The internet has revolutionized advertising in the most astounding way. Not only has it changed the way ads are broadcasted, but it’s changed the way consumers act toward them.

The History of Advertising – Then: Traditional Ads

Let’s take things back to the pre-internet days.

The days when advertisements were carried out via cheesy infomercials on the radio, fuzzy old televisions, and billboards. This was the golden era of advertising – when the whole movement was considered a huge part of society – almost taking on a cultural status.

The first TV ad popped up on screens in 1941 in America – probably a lot later than you’d imagine. Before the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies played each other, viewers saw a brief commercial for Bulova clocks and watches.

Such a small moment set the precedent for the next seventy years.

Back then, adverts were a staunch part of society. Despite the 50s being a tense decade for America during the Cold War, TV viewers felt optimistic and were beginning to loosen their purse strings as prosperity began to rise .

Characters were built around products to create a semblance of connection between viewers and brands (though this idea of a consumer connection didn’t become a priority until later), and famous faces were brought to sell everything from washing machines to cigarettes. This period provides some of the earliest signs of ambassador marketing .

Take the Marlboro Man, for example, who became a recognizable cultural figure between the 1960s and 1990s. The aim was to turn filtered cigarettes from a feminine phenomenon to a more masculine one with the help of rugged cowboys and a stream of moody-looking men. Even today it’s considered one of the best advertisement campaigns of all time .

On television, products, and characters began to go hand and hand. Let’s take cereal as an example. Think Tony the Tiger and Frosted Flakes, or the Snap, Crackle, and Pop gnomes for Rice Krispies – both of which are still going strong today.

Despite the different characters and the vastly different selection of products that began to emerge, ads at this time had one purpose: to sell.

Yes, these characters were central to the ads and played a major part in creating an ad culture for consumers, but the product was always at the forefront.

It might have seemed like Tony the Tiger or the Marlboro Man were the epicenters of their aligning ad campaigns, but they simply served as a tool to sell, sell, sell.

Now : Different Motives

Today, the shift in the advertising world has seen the rise of other motives when it comes to commercials. Rather than the sell mentality, ads are now more focused on community building and brand awareness .

The History of Advertising – Now: The product is no longer the centerpiece.

Strong ads demonstrate the solution to the consumer’s problem (in a way that doesn’t feel sales-y).

Let’s consider an example that’s not too dissimilar to the character-led ads of the past. The Dairy Milk Gorilla ad in 2007 didn’t even show or mention Cadbury – the company it was supposed to be advertising.

Ad disaster?  No, far from it.

The drum-playing gorilla (bashing along to Phil Collins  In the Air Tonight and set against a purple background) got tongues wagging. It got people talking. This wasn’t a brazen attempt to flog more Cadbury chocolate bars. Instead, it was a strategic move that also played with brand color and psychology. It raised awareness of Cadbury and solidified it as a “cool” and “must-have” brand (because why else would everyone be talking about it?).

The simple nature of the ad lent itself perfectly to spoofs, one key way viewers can interact with a brand – almost like a back-and-forth dialogue. To date, there are more than 300 spoofs of the ad .

Taking things online, Lowe’s “Fix in Six” home improvement ads filmed through the 6-second Vine app aren’t overt. The genius videos show solutions to DIY problems in six seconds or less – not only are they fun to watch, but they are also actionable (basically, a dream combination).

The humorous take on home DIY problems has helped it create a friendly persona for its consumers , taking it a step away from “advertiser.” “Fix in Six” isn’t overtly linked to Lowe’s either. There’s no “ hey, this is Lowe’s and you need to buy everything in this ad from us ” spiel.

This idea of emphasizing a solution to consumers’ problems (like home DIY) instead of the product is becoming increasingly common. Brands have to work twice as hard to gain the trust of consumers in the internet world (which we’ll discuss more in a moment), so advertising has kind of taken on a two-step process:

• Helpful content that provides a solution to a problem.
• Consumers like helpful content and dig deeper to find out more about the brand (therefore building trust and a connection. Note that the consumer is actively digging to find out more themselves).

From a Passive to Active Consumers: The Biggest Changes in the History of Advertising

Our TV experiences are still littered with traditional ads, but the times are quickly a-changing. More change has happened in the past 20 years in advertising than in the previous 2,000 years – when ancient Egyptians would etch public notices into steel, right up until the 1980s when ads were a form of culture of sorts.

What has so drastically changed the ad landscape?

We’re living in the ad-blocker age.

Audiences are actively choosing not to have to sit through commercials (or be bombarded with ads while they browse the internet).

We have to look at the rise of apps that stop ads from showing up – and the emergence of pay-to-stream platforms like Netflix. Yep, people are actively choosing to pay to not have to sit through ads.

This new trend of saying no to ads is thought to have cost publishers up to $22 billion (yes, billion ) in revenue per year – and increasing – so it’s not to be taken lightly.

If this isn’t a hint to advertisers that they need to change tack (if they haven’t already), I don’t know what is.

Consumers are less trusting of commercials

Millennials are the demographic of the moment, but they’re also the most skeptical when it comes to ads. According to TINT’s State of Social & User-Generated Content report, nearly seventy-six percent (76%) of consumers have used social media to search for or discover products, brands, and experiences.

Now, this is where the solution comes before the product .

Brands have to prove themselves before consumers will even consider buying from them.

It’s a far cry from the days of the Marlboro Man in the history of advertising, who just had to sit looking moody on a horse ( just imagine what he’d have to do now to build trust ).

The historical rise of user-generated content

To build trust with consumers, brands are partnering up with people brands want to purchase from them.

Essentially, consumers have become a part of advertising, rather than passive onlookers.

Brands should focus more on creating a community and getting consumers on board to help sell their products (which is why brands and consumers value sites like TripAdvisor so much).

Take GoPro , for example, a hugely popular brand that regularly pumps out user-generated content for its consumers. Instead of creating ads that simply shout “buy our awesome product”, they let their customers do the talking.

Or pelicans, in this case:

And then there’s Polaroid, a company that promotes user-generated content using TINT on their website rather than ads. They encourage consumers to get involved by asking them to carry out tasks, like “snap a photo with the new Taylor Swift album for a chance to win the Polaroid 22300 camera”.

Why does this work? Because people trust other people, not brands .

The need for loyal followers over one-time buyers

This brings me to the final biggest change.

Because brands are increasingly becoming aware that people trust other people, not brands (we’re all getting wise to that trick), they’re shifting their focus from one-time buyers to creating a loyal following.

Why? Because a loyal following sells products all by itself. A group of raving fans is one of the best advertising tools a company can have – they will shout from the rooftops about a product without any pushing.

Take Patagonia clothing, for example. One of their most famous ads  does something that would have been completely bizarre back in the Marlboro Man days. They actively encourage their buyers to send back their clothing to get it fixed, rather than buy a brand-new item

Surely this lowers sales? Actually, it serves two very clever purposes.

Firstly, it creates a loyal audience because their primary aim is to make sure their customers are happy – not selling more products.

Secondly, it builds trust.

Think about it logically: if a brand is encouraging you to send back a product if it’s broken, you’re more likely to think it won’t break, because why the heck would they promise to do that if they’re selling a shoddy product?

With evidence clearly showing that audiences are doing everything in they can to avoid the dreaded ad, it’s obvious that they have more power in what they do and don’t choose to buy into it.

The history of advertising has taken it from the etchings of ancient Egypt, through the emergence of the printing press, through the golden age of cheesy infomercials and character-led sales pitches, to today, where ads are quickly being replaced by organic ways to build trust and community.

Marlboro Man might have been the man of the moment in the 1960s, but what impact would he have now in a time where delivering solutions comes way, way above the sell, sell, sell mentality?

Would he fare well with audiences that favor knowledge and authenticity? Who knows: that would be down to the consumer to decide.

Community and User-Generated Content are the future of advertising.

Learn more about how TINT can elevate your marketing efforts with beautiful, authentic content created by your biggest fans. Request a personalized demo 

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• DOI: 10.1213/00000539-194507000-00014
• Corpus ID: 58304959

History in Advertising

• H. Dittrick
• Published 1 July 1945
• History, Business
• Anesthesia & Analgesia

28 Citations

Relational marketing throughout the history of commercial exchange: blind spots in marketing’s origin story, entrepreneurship within the history of marketing, methods and characteristics of commercial advertising in the socio-cultural context of the new economic policy (nep), efficiency of business and intercultural communication: multilingual advertising discourse, advertising in emerging market : relationships among advertising, values and lifestyles of the new urban middle class in post-reform china, how “offensive” is offensive a closer look at controversial advertisements.

• Highly Influenced

The Role of Advertising and Trademarks Affections in Greco - Roman Egypt

Fabricating the market: the promotion of life assurance in the long nineteenth-century, the language of the walls: putting promotional saturation in historical context, the effect of the internet on enhancing marketing among business organizations, related papers.

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The History of Advertising (With Yearly Timeline)

October 24, 2023 | By Hitesh Bhasin | Filed Under: Marketing

Advertising is a global phenomenon that has been influencing people’s ways of perceiving things around them for ages. The very first indications of advertising are said to go back to the old Egyptians’ steel carvings in 2000 BC, while the first print advertisement was published in 1472 when William Caxton printed advertisements for a book. Since then, the history of the advertising industry has been quite exciting, and it has gone through many radical changes and quantum jumps.

Key takeaways

Evolution Across Centuries : The history of advertising spans from ancient time periods with Egyptians’ steel carvings in 2000 BC, to the first print advertisement in 1472, progressing into the era of newspapers and magazines in the 16th and 17th centuries, and continuing into radio, television, and online platforms in the subsequent centuries.

A Shift in Medium Over Time : Advertising mediums have evolved over the years, beginning with print advertising, then transitioning into billboards, followed by the rise of radio and television. The significant shift from these traditional platforms to online advertising has been monumental, setting the stage for the current phase of advertising.

Current State of Advertising : Current advertising trends significantly involve the internet and mobile platforms, marking a significant leap from the age of physical advertising mediums. Major players like YouTube, Amazon, and Hulu have emerged, distributing content and advertisements to massive audiences worldwide.

The history of advertising has been adjusting and changing to suit new mediums different platforms and audiences throughout the industry. It has always been trying to be more customized to the target niches.

The course of events underneath shows how it has changed since the beginning. Then we will go through the history of radio, TV and online advertising. So, let us start unraveling the evolution right away-

Table of Contents

The History of Advertising

The evolution of modern advertising started with the emergence of newspapers and magazines in the 16th and 17th centuries. The maiden weekly gazettes saw the light of day in Venice in the early 16th-century, sparking the initiation of weekly publications in Italy, Germany, and Holland.

In the 1620s, Britain witnessed the printing press with the introduction of its first weeklies, and from 1702 to 1735, The Daily Courant, the country’s first daily newspaper, was in circulation. Advertisements featured almost immediately in these newspapers, aiding in offsetting printing and distribution costs. The first commercial advertisements highlighted books and fraudulent medicines.

However, by the 1650s, a significantly broader range of products started getting advertised.

Later in 1835, advertising took a new turn with the very first ever billboard advertising ad in the US showed carnival/circus posters more than 50 sq. Ft.

The next significant event in the history of advertising comes with Sears, the very first company to concentrate more on personalization by running ads through post office based mails. They came up with their vast regular postal mail ad campaign in 1892 with 8,000 postcards, and it created 2,000 new requests.

With the introduction of personalization in advertising came the personalized use of advertising. Radio and TV ads also got the most ad space at this time, and the whole world of advertisements got revolutionized.

Radio and TV ads took the personalization to the next level in which ad campaigns were designed in such a manner that specific audiences got a personalized touch.

The very first ad that was run on the radio came into existence in 1922.

Let us unfold that part of the history of mass media advertising here and now-

History of Radio Advertising

In 1922, Radio host H.M. Blackwell made his radio ad by incorporating the indirect-direct strategy. This ad campaign had a 10-minute discussion about the virtues of carrying on with a happy life at the Hawthorne Court Apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens. The expense for this 10-minute radio ad was $50.

The very first radio stations were set up by radio hardware makers and retailers in the early 1920s. Madison Avenue was amongst the first of those who perceived the significance of radio ads as one of the most useful mediums for promotions.

As per the advertising veterans, the first ad for a live radio station was supported by a milk company and published in the Los Angeles Times on May 6, 1930. In the same year, Rosser Reeves presented the possibility of USP that depicts how your business will tackle the concerns of your clients. It was another move towards personalized radio advertising potentials.

George Gallup, in the year 1935, presented statistical surveying — gathering data about potential customers to make the radio advertising more personalized and result-driven.

The next big thing in the history of advertising then occurred on July 1, 1941, when the very first commercial sprung up on TV screens on WNBT. Even though this Bulova Watch Company TV ad was just of 10-second, it set the trend for the following 70 years.

Let us now have a look at the history of advertising on TV-

History of TV Advertising

The first golden age of advertising came in the 1960s and went on to the late 1980s. This golden age was when the presence of TV Ads boomed and lot of celebrities used to come on TV ads and influence consumers.

Many businesses started assembling characters around their items to set up a favorable association to sell products with their audiences. TV advertising became a prime means of effective mass marketing and branding.

Many ads like Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes, or Pop gnomes for Rice Krispies were one of the most popular ads. Some of the well-known faces such as Marlboro Man from the 1960s to 1990s were likewise regularly used to sell items and optimize TV advertising.

The new medium of Television was so powerful, and companies started using it for TV advertising so predominantly with a sheer motive of widening the reach, increasing customer awareness, and brand loyalty and increasing sales.

Using characters in TV and print ads was mainly done for developing an ad culture, and it became quite successful in putting products at the forefront.

Cable TV Advertising from the 1980s

TV advertising saw intensive publicity in the late 1980s and mid-1990s with the popularity of cable television. MTV played a preeminent role in changing the dynamic of TV ads. Spearheading the idea of the music video, MTV came up with multiple sorts of TV ads concepts.

With the booming popularity of cable and satellite TV, many specialty channels rose to fame, including TV channels thoroughly committed to Ads, for example, QVC, ShopTV Canada, and Home Shopping Network.

Now, the time has come to have a look upon changing TV technology and associated TV advertising and how the shift from TV advertising to online advertising occurred-

Timeline of TV Advertising & shift from TV Advertising to Online Advertising

1941: FCC (Federal Communications Commission) provided business licenses to 10 US TV stations in May, while on July 1, the very first TV ad aired talking about a spot by the Bulova watch company that had a cost of $9.

1951: The spending on TV ads reached $128 million, which was $12.5 million in 1949, so an increment of a 10X.

1953: Launching of Commercially Broadcast Color TV occurred.

1955: TV advertisement spending reached $1 billion thresholds.

1963: TV outperformed the local newspapers as the information source for the very first time.

1964: “The Big 3” (CBS, NBC, and ABC) demanded $50,000 from promoters for a prime-time minute.

1968: Presidential campaign TV ad spending dramatically increased, from $10 million in 1960 to $27 million in 1968.

1971: There occurred a congressional ban on radio and TV cigarette ads that stripped broadcast business of about $220 million in television advertising.

1977: Gross Television ad incomes ascend to $7.5 billion, which, at that point, likens to 20% of all total US advertising spending.

1984: In the third quarter of the Super Bowl, Apple came up with the Macintosh PC with a $500,000 spot that transformed the NFL’s main game into a significant advertising occasion. This likewise denoted the start of a time when advertising become so significant.

1986: The Cosby Show of NBC broke the existing records for a Network series by infusing $350,000 to $400,000 for the commercial time of just 30 seconds.

1989: Because of expanded rivalry, big broadcast networks arrived at a massive low of 55% of the total TV viewership.

1994: This year, the history of advertising met with a whole new media revolution, which was online advertising. The online ad spending reached $300 million in the mid-1990s.

1997: Netflix was launched with a DVD pay-per-rental model.

1999: TiVo came up with its first Digital Video Recorder (DVR) unit via which the time of recording shows started.

2005: YouTube was launched in this year. Then in the next year, Google purchased it for $1.65 billion.

2007: Netflix streaming was launched this year, plus AMC acquainted the world with our top choice, “Mad Man”: Don Draper.

2008: Hulu was launched in this year.

2011: Amazon reintroduced its video-on-request service named as Amazon Instant Video and provided access to 5,000 films and TV shows for Amazon Prime individuals.

2017: US subscription video services channelized by Hulu, Amazon, and Netflix made around $15 billion in monthly charges only.

2017: Spending on TV advertisements succumbs to the first run-through, as more Americans make a move away from the link. Viewership of even the most mainstream organizations keeps on declining.

2018: YouTube flaunted 1.9 billion signed in monthly users who watched 180+ million hours of YouTube per day.

2018: Traditional TV ad spending decreases another 2%.

2018: 70% of the TVs sold reach consumers all over the world are “connected” TVs.

2019: Hulu flaunted about 25 million subscribers, while Netflix started approaching 150 million subscribers.

2019: The pay-TV industry says a 5% decrease in pay-TV users in 2019. YouTube TV also opened up across the nation and offered a different type of membership plan.

So, while exploring the brief history of advertising on TV, you got to know about the shifting of advertising from TV to the world wide web. Let us now, have a detailed look upon the evolution of online advertising here and now-

History of Advertising on the Web (Online and Mobile Advertising Timeline)

1978- Email marketing was used as the first instance of email spam whose purpose was advertising and commercial messages.

1980- Usenet, which was a popular discussion forum, was launched this year, and it was overwhelmed via advertising spam posts.

1984- Banner advertising was used in this year. Prodigy was launched to offer one of the first online display advertising services. However, such banner ads were most in the same spot on the screen, and they were non-clickable.

1991- There was a ban on commercial use on the NSFNET was lifted by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in this year.

1993- GNN, which was one of the first web publications and advertising services , was launched this year by O’Reilly Media.

1994- Banner advertising was again used, as the first-ever clickable advertisement was sold to a Silicon Valley law firm by GNN in this year.

1994- HotWired, which is the first commercial web magazine, was launched this year.

1994- Again, a banner advertising event, as the very first ever banner ad, was sold to AT&T and was visible on the first issue of HotWired.

1995- AOL acquired banner advertising GNN for $11 million this year.

1996- Ad serving DoubleClick, which was a prominent online advertising company, was launched.

1996- Search advertising Yahoo! introduced the very first search ads in their search engine on the web.

1997- Pop-up ads were invented by Ethan Zuckerman and considered to be a more aggressive and disliked advertising strategy .

1998- Google launched an online search engine.

1998- Ad exchange OpenX was one of the first ad exchanges that were launched as an open-source project.

1998- Search advertising GoTo (now Yahoo! Search Marketing) was launched. It was a search engine that offered search advertising.

1999- HotWired was shut down after its domain was re-purposed by Lycos.

2000- Search advertising Google came up with the prominent AdWords service this year, which allowed for advertising based on the browsing habits and search keywords of internet users.

2002- Different prominent web browsers such as Firefox, Opera, and Netscape started to roll out features to block these ads.

2003- Yahoo! acquired –  Overture (formerly GoTo)

2004- Facebook was launched this year and since then started the Social Media Advertising.

2005- YouTube was launched.

2005- Demand-side platform- Criteo was launched.

2006- YouTube was by Google for $1.65 billion.

2006- Adblocking AdBlock for web browsers was introduced.

2006- Content discovery platform Outbrain was launched.

2006- Native advertising was used with a YouTube video advertising platform.

2007- Content discovery platform Taboola was introduced in this year.

2007- Behavioral targeting, social media advertising techniques became popular when Facebook launched Beacon that tracks Facebook users’ activities on websites outside of Facebook.

2007- Ad serving became prevalent when Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 billion.

2007- Microsoft acquired AQuantive for $6.5 billion for ad serving.

2007- Demand-side platform MediaMath was launched in this year.

2008- Demand-side platform Rocket Fuel Inc. was launched.

2008- Rick Petnel created Easylist available for ad-blocking web browser add-ons

2009- Google came up with its ad exchange platform with DoubleClick.

2010- Google introduced DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) as advertising software.

2010- Twitter came up with Promoted Tweets that enabled advertisers to pay for tweets to be shown to target users .

2013- Facebook acquired Atlas Solutions from Microsoft for $100 million.

2013- Instagram was introduced with features for social media platforms like sponsored posts.

2014- Pinterest as an image sharing platform was launched with Promoted Pins sorts of options for Social Media Advertising.

2014- UBlock Origin, an ad-blocking extension, was introduced.

2014- Facebook re-launched Atlas for ad serving.

2016- Snapchat was introduced, which gave Social Media Advertising a new turn.

2016- Mobile ad spend overtook desktop ad

In conclusion, the history of advertising has seen remarkable advancements and evolution through different mediums. From its early beginnings in the print media, expansion of ad content into radio and television commercials, and its eventual shift to the digital space, advertising has constantly adapted to audience preferences.

Some significant milestones in advertising history include the first print advertisement in 1472, the emergence of billboard ads in 1835, radio advertising in 1922, TV advertising in 1941, followed by the rise of cable TV advertising in the 1980s. The shift from TV to the online channels of advertising began in the 1990s and continues to thrive today with platforms such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon.

Who is the father of Advertising?

The figure often recognized as the “Father of Advertising” is David Mackenzie Ogilvy. He was a British advertising tycoon and founder of Ogilvy & Mather. Ogilvy’s success in advertising was attributed to his meticulous research into consumer habits. It’s worth noting that Edward Louis Bernays, an American theorist, is also considered a significant figure in this field and is often referred to as the “father of public relations”

Who wrote the first advertisement?

The first advertisement is traced back to ancient Egyptians around 2000 BC. The first known print advertisement had its origins in England, published by William Caxton in 1472 to promote a book

What is the origin of advertising?

The first recorded form of advertising came with papyrus-based sales messages and promotional material in the ancient city of Thebes, Egypt. In the Middle Ages, advertising took the form of handbills and signs from town criers or tradesmen, intended to attract business.

Liked this post? Check out the complete series on Advertising

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About Hitesh Bhasin

Hitesh Bhasin is the CEO of Marketing91 and has over a decade of experience in the marketing field. He is an accomplished author of thousands of insightful articles, including in-depth analyses of brands and companies. Holding an MBA in Marketing, Hitesh manages several offline ventures, where he applies all the concepts of Marketing that he writes about.

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Marketography

Advertising – Then and Now

09 Tuesday Mar 2010

Posted by Gregory Dean in Marketing Philosophy

≈ 4 Comments

Advertising history , evolution of advertising , target marketing

Arens, Schaefer, & Weigold (2009) developed a timeline indicating the first known advertising message was created in 3000 BC. Although the actual message bore a closer resemblance to a classified advertisement, the evolution of advertising had begun. The nonpersonal, persuasive, structured communications we recognize today are a progeny of advertising efforts spanning the past few centuries. Early advertising and distribution was limited to a small geographic area surrounding a vendor. Everyday advertising, such as a merchant’s signage, used symbols instead of words to indicate the type of business and product or services offered.

During the preindustrial age, advertising was reaching far beyond the simple signage and word of mouth of local merchants. Handbill, posters, and signs became popular formats for advertising. The printing press was one of the most important developments in the history and evolution of advertising.  By the middle of the 1600s, the printing press was enjoying the bicentennial of its introduction by Johannes Gutenberg. Gutenberg’s invention was one of three major developments that can be attributed to the birth of modern advertising (Arens, Schaefer, & Weigold, 2009).

The first newspaper advertisement appeared in 1650. While a large percentage of the population could not read, the local newspapers were becoming recognized as a medium for delivering advertising to the masses. Merchants, vendors, and manufacturers used newspapers to extend their marketing boundaries beyond the small concentrated areas surrounding their physical locations. Print advertising first appeared in America within the pages of the Boston Newsletter –published in 1704. Ben Franklin is responsible for creating the structure and format of print ads. His techniques for making print ads more legible and easier to understand continue to be used in modern print advertising. Ben Franklin was the first in America to recognize the need to large headlines, white space, and illustrations in advertisements.

England had enjoyed several hundred years of advertising before the American colonies were born. English author, Samuel Johnson, recognized the oversaturation of advertising. In 1758, Johnson insisted that in order to stand out, advertisers needed to embellish their messages. Puffery, as recommended by Johnson, is the exaggeration of the benefits or capabilities of a product or service in an advertisement. While an accepted practice of the industrializing age, puffery is not tolerated in modern advertising.

The industrializing age began in America in the early 1800s—nearly half a century behind the Industrial Revolution in England—introducing machines to mass-produce goods. The sudden surplus of goods and products exposed a need for aggressive marketing and broad saturation advertising. Retailers assumed the responsibility of advertising to the consumers. The industrialization age was followed by the industrial age and once again the face of advertising changed. Advertising during the industrial age—recognized as the first seventy-five years of the twentieth century—focused on the promotion of consumer-packaged goods.

The postindustrial age of the 1980s through 1990s faced the challenges of marketing to an environmentally sensitive society. Demarketing techniques were used in advertising in an attempt to make consumers aware of a company’s environmentally responsible manufacturing and supply-chain methods. Consumers today are not only better informed about products and services, but also the companies that produce them. The modern consumer will research a company and absorb feedback from word-of-mouse channels such as blogs and forums to offset the positive-only hype from advertising. The green movement is represents a marketing potential of 500 billion dollars (Hopkins, 2009).

Modern advertising trends are constantly changing. Mostly driven by advances in technology, advertising media is becoming broader reaching and less expensive to leverage. The Internet has evolved into an advertisers low-cost playground. Email campaigns are less expensive to produce than traditional print campaigns. The Internet also allows a more strategic direct and targeted approach to advertising. Email is a less formal and more personalized alternative to traditional direct mail campaigns.

Regardless of the message and media, advertisers are spending more time identifying their target audience. The recent economic downturn has caused consumers to tighten their belts. Recovery takes longer than downturn (Libey, 2004). During the recovery, consumers strive to become better educated about the products they purchase. Advertising, using every popular medium, to a target audience in the only way a business can stand out on the very crowded playing field with their competitors. In modern advertising, every marketing dollar counts. A savvy marketer will use several techniques, such as predictive modeling, to select a target audience for a specific product or service. The marketing message, advertisement, and call to action will be written specifically for the target audience. Identifying a target market and creating an advertising campaign with relevant content and a compelling message positions a marketing manager for the highest likelihood for success.

The advertising industry has been redefined several times. The types of advertising agencies within the industry have grown. While there have always been local, regional, and international specialists within the industry, niche or creative boutique type agencies are beginning to become prevalent. Many companies are using in-house departments for concept, design, and creative while relying on traditional agencies for media placement. The purpose and definition of advertising has remained consistent across each ring of growth.

Arens, W., Schaefer, D., & Weigold, M. (2009). Essentials of contemporary advertising.  McGraw-Hill Irwin. Boston.

Hopkins, D. (2009). Riches in niches: Connecting to true browns . Retrieved February 8, 2010, from http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/riches-niches- connecting-true-browns-403940/1

Libey, D. (2004). Signs of real economic recovery. Retrieved February 6, 2010, from  http://www.targetmarketingmag.com/article/signs-real-economic-recovery- 28914/1

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The Evolution of Advertising Over the Past Four Decades [Infographic]

It's difficult to overstate the significance of the media consumption shift over the past 40 years. 

Once, TV was the star of the show for ads, with newspapers and magazines not too far behind, but in the last decade, digital media has quickly gained pace, as the development of mobile technology, and connective tools like social media platforms, has paved the way for a drastic realignment of marketing budgets and approaches.

That's also meant a major shift in marketing understanding. What was once key strategy, and worked in boosting your messaging, is no longer as effective in the modern age. The fundamentals of marketing apply across all mediums, with messaging still key to maximizing appeal. But those in the industry have had a steep learning curve in many respects, opening the door for new talent and tactics, and re-shaping advertising as we know it.

This chart puts the scope of that shift into some perspective. The team from Raconteur have put together this overview of the marketing and advertising shifts since 1980, highlighting just how much things have changed - and what that means for your approach.

It's amazing to take in - and with the COVID-19 pandemic further accelerating digital adoption, you can likely expect these trends to hold for the foreseeable future. 

A version of this post was first published on the Digital Information World blog .

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History Of Advertising

Where 1st paid advertisement cost $9   in 1941, today, the advertising spend globally has hiked to:

• $160 billion for TV and radio ads
• 17 billion US dollars for Print media ads, and
• 455 billion for digital and mobile ads

The history of advertising timelines started in ancient civilisation. It all commenced when people discovered fire, gathered fruits and nuts and protein-rich animals, and settled near water to catch fish.

Soon after, people installed their settlements, uncovered the importance of earning, and wanted to sell their products.

It was the birth of advertising.

As the world kept evolving, with the radical changes and quantum jumps, advertising and marketing grew too. And today, advertising is so mainstream that it follows humans everywhere. It has gained power over humans, so much so as fire, technology, and food.

Let’s get back in time and learn about the interesting facts of the dramatic revolution of advertising and learn how it helped businesses to grow and develop interpersonal relationships with their customers.

Pre-Modern History

No one knows how advertising began. But we know that even the earliest businesses started to use it to differentiate themselves from others.

Moreover, early advertisers used wall painting and oral ways to sell products, which is still present in many parts of Africa, Asia, and South America.

After a while, sellers advanced their advertising techniques when they realised there were more ways to sell their products.

The four primary forms of advertisements that existed during the pre-modern age, i.e., before printing, are:

• Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising – The ruins of Pompeii and Arabia had political campaigns and commercial messages displayed. The lost and found advertising on papyrus was pretty famous in Ancient Rome. In fact, the first noted advertising is of a fabric merchant called Hapu who released a papyrus where he offered a reward for the capture and return of an escaped slave called Shem. Wall paintings, however, were found in a different part of the world – India, where the Indian rock art paintings started in 4000 BCE.
• Pottery jars from ancient Greece and Rome
• Chinese porcelain, and
• Pottery made in India
• Moreover, as recorded in the Classic of Poetry (11th to 7th centuries BCE), the earliest advertising known in ancient China was oral, where sellers hollered and played bamboo flutes to sell candy.
• At the same time, itinerant hawkers developed a system of street criers at many places in the world to promote and sell their goods or services, which are prominent to date.
• Signboards – Shopkeepers hung signs to exhibit the symbols of their trades. Instead of signs that read cobbler or tailor, they used images as signs of shoes and stitching machines. Signboards became a common way for sellers to communicate with their customers. The use of signboards had its trace in antiquity when ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, and China placed them in the front of their shops to communicate or announce a market day, meals available for the date, etc.

1439: Global Spread Of The Printing Press

With the invention of Gutenberg’s printing press with movable type in 1439, the mass printing of flyers and brochures became possible globally. Print advertisement led to materialisation similar to flyers and print advertising we see today.

Gutenberg’s first significant print work – the 42-line Bible in Latin was printed between 1452 and 1454.

1600s – 1870s: The Newspapers And Magazines Era

Modern advertising began with the advent of magazines and newspapers in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The first gazettes appeared in Venice in the mid-16th century. The concert rolled up from there, and the concept of weekly publications reached Italy, Germany, Holland and, in the 1620s, Britain and other regions.

The first newspaper ad appeared in the Boston News-Letter on May 8, 1704. It was a real estate advertisement selling a plantation on Oyster Bay, Long Island.

The newspaper carried advertisements from the outset for books and quack medicines and later for various products to mitigate the advertising cost of printing and distribution.

The advancement in printing gave rise to:

• Trade cards started printing on substantial cards with detailed illustrations in the 18th century to keep up the interpersonal relationships with customers.
• Posters became popular to promote business in 1839.
• Jared Bell brought billiard printing into practice in 1835 in America and kept advancing to date.

1870s – 1920s

During the Industrial Revolution, advertising dramatically increased in the US after the 1870s with the expansion of manufactured product supply to the larger market. The invention of mass marketing helped influence the behaviour of the population on a larger scale. So much so that the total advertising budget went from $200 million in 1880 to nearly $3 billion in 1920 .

The boost in the use of advertising gave rise to the following in advertisements:

• Sex and psychology – In 1911, the Woodbury Soap Company used images of sexual contact to sell their product – their slogan claimed the women who use their soap gets: “Skin You Love To Touch”.
• Nudity – Woodbury Soap was the first to use nudity in their ad known as “The Sun Bath”. This ad had a nude woman lying on her side with her back to the camera on the stairs. The text showed that the soap is enriched with “filter sunshine”.
• Psychology – Many ad men, especially Edward Louis Bernays, promoted and harnessed the “sublimation” approach – in the 1910s and 1920s to advertise cigarettes. The cigarette was believed to give rise to modern and innovative advertising techniques. John B. Watson, the former chair at Johns Hopkins University, implemented behaviourism into advertising that appealed to customers’ emotions (love, hate, and fear).
• 4A’s4A’s – As advertising was everywhere by the 20th century, Ad agencies were responsible for the content. To take advertising up a notch, 111 charter members and five regional industry groups, on June 4, 1917, formed the American Association of Advertising Agencies, now called the 4A’s4A’s.
• The American government promoted advertising in the 1920s.
• Advertising became a vehicle for cultural assimilation.
• American Association of Foreign Language Newspapers, primarily an advertising agency, gained centralised control over the immigrant press and used it to influence the immigrants.

1920s: When Radio Met Advertising

Advertising met radio in 1922 when the first ever radio commercial aired on WEAF, New York, on August 28. The government prohibited direct selling. Thus radio host H.M. Blackwell arranged a 10-minute talk on the goodness of living a carefree life in the suburbs at the Hawthorne Court Apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens. That 10-minute talk was backed by direct-indirect selling and cost $50.

1925: Out-Of-Home Advertising Technique

In 1925, the out-of-home advertising technique started getting into play, with sequential billboards gaining popularity. So much so that Burma Shave, across the US, propped the rhyming billboards, which took the company from unheard to the number two shaving cream company in the US.

1930s: Advertising And World War II

Advertising came under heavy pressure during the outbreak of the Pacific War in the 1930s. The depression led businessmen to lay back their advertising budgets drastically.

The New Deal, which had a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and more, gave rise to consumerism and minimised the need for advertising.

Moving to 1940, advertising played a role in the ideological mobilisation of the American people – as they helped to redefine the “American Way of Life” in terms of a commitment to free enterprise. The role of advertising in the social and political context created a dominant consumer culture in the post-World War II era.

1940-1950s: The Post-War And Television Advertising

When millions of Americans settled down in new housing, they spent heavily on automobiles, clothes, furniture, housing, and appliances. Their needs and the television’s entry gave a great enlarging boost to advertising.

The first TV commercial aired on July 1 1941 , which lasted 10 seconds and cost $9.00.

1960: The Psychologists Got Involved In Advertising 

The 1960s was the golden era in the history of advertising.

At this time, professionals started to base their ideas on psychology and big data and allocated big budgets. The involvement of psychologists, researchers, and focus groups transformed advertising into a real calculated science.

1970: Telemarketing

In 1970, businesses used telemarketing as a common tactic to call their customers and sell products. It was an office version of door-to-door direct sales.

1973: The Beginning Of The Digital Age

The synergy of psychology and the advent of new technologies continues to advance the advertising landscape.

• In 1973, Motorola researcher Dr Martin Cooper developed the first-ever hand-held mobile phone.
• In 1989, the involvement of science and economics in advertising, which started in 1980, gave a new pivot to the advertising industry: the World Wide Web. It was a kickstart to make advertising go digital.

1978: Email Marketing

The emails were being designed since the 1960s. With the introduction of the internet, email sharing became common in government, business, defence/military industries, and universities.

Gary Thuerk sent the first email marketing blast to 400 people to promote his company’s computers, which resulted in sales of $13 million.

1981-1984: Computers’ Age

In August 1981, IBM introduced its first Personal Computer (IBM 5150).

In 1984, Apple launched its hugely successful Macintosh, convinced by the advertisement made by Chiat/Day and directed by Ridley Scott , which got telecasted on television only once during the 1984 Super Bowl football game. The ad cost them 1 million pounds but reached 26.4% of American houses.

1985 – Newspaper Advertising

Print advertising with newspapers worked well, and in 1985, the US industry revenue reached $25 billion . The emergence of desktop publishing contributed highly to revenue growth.

Cable Television From The 1980s

The late 1980s and the start of the 1990s witnessed the experience of cable television and, in particular, MTV.

MTV induced psychological factors into the ads and created a new type of advertising . For consumers, advertising becomes the focus rather than the by-product.

Special channels got dedicated to advertising, including:

• Home Shopping Network, and
• ShopTV Canada

1990-1994: The Advancement Of The Mobile And The Start Of Text Advertising

Friedhelm Hillebrand and Bernard Ghillebaert first developed the SMS concept in the Franco-German GSM cooperation in 1984.

The first message ever sent was by Neil Papworth, a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms, on December 3, 1992.

1995 – 1997: Search Engines

1995 and 1997 saw the first invention of search engines. From 16M users in December 1995 to 70M in December 1997 , it was impressive growth for the internet.

1996 – 2000: Millenium – Adwords!

In 1996, the advertising industry received DoubleClick, the advertising platform allowing users to run targeted ad campaigns.

As Google had a great consumer base, in 2000, it developed Google AdWords. This advertising platform allowed businesses to target audiences and run ads based on their search performance and browsing history. Later in 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick for $3.1 Billion . 

2003 – 2007: Web 2.0

With the advent of social media in 2003 and its rapid growth in popularity, social media, including LinkedIn, Myspace, Twitter, and Facebook, started using their platform and audience to advertise products in 2007 directly and indirectly.

In 2005, in Google AdWords, native Gmail ads became accessible to all advertisers.

The AdSense advertising platform launched in 2003 was the first ad network to match ads on a blog and made it possible for bloggers to make money from their blogs.

2008 – 2009: Online Videos Advertising

In 2008, 2.4 Billion people in the UK watched online videos, which rose from 1.6 Billion views in 2008 . However, since 99 per cent of all videos viewed were viewed on YouTube.com on the property, it made YouTube set in motion 7 Youtube Ad formats in 2009.

2012: Social Media Marketing

In 2012, Social Media became one of the best lead generators. Social media was used to generate leads and revenue as:

• 34% of marketers have generated leads using Twitter
• Linked was said to be a 277% more effective lead generator than other platforms.
• Facebook earned $4.2 billion through Ads.

2012 – 2020s: AI And Automation

Marketing automation began in 1992 . But it was in the mid-2000s when the automation industry started taking shape in the advertising industry.

It was after 2012 – 2012s when automation started to become a familiar term in the industry and gained popularity.

Today, automation and AI transformed adverts and emails using big data analytics, machine learning, and other processes. In fact, it is predicted by Statista that markets will spend 126 billion dollars by 2025 on (AI) software worldwide.

Bottom Line

From posters and rock paintings to marketing automation, the purpose of advertising has always remained the same:

• To sell products
• Develop interpersonal relationships with customers, and
• Convert prospects into buying customers

But, the forms and ways of advertising have changed and rapidly evolved. From being a large blanket of operation, it now has a personalised approach that enables the businesses to engage with customers more and drive higher ROI.

The history of advertising signifies how rapidly approach, methods, understanding, tactics, technology, and customer relation change and develop. And how crucial it is to accept and stay agile in this changing world.

Go On, Tell Us What You Think!

Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on Advertising History in the comments section.

Ravpreet is an avid writer, prone to penning compelling content that hits the right chord. A startup enthusiast, Ravpreet has written content about startups for over three years and helped them succeed. You can also find her cooking, making singing videos, or walking on quiet streets in her free time.

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Advertising Evolution: How Personalization Has Improved over Time

• The very beginning
• The “Golden Age”

Online advertising

• Mobile advertising
• Digital advertising: challenges & solutions
• The evolution includes the post-click stage

The evolution of advertising has experienced some major milestones over the years, as it’s had to adapt and change to suit new mediums and audiences constantly. Most significantly, it’s become much more personalized throughout history. The one medium that’s had the biggest impact on the history of advertising and advertising personalization is the internet, and its ability to collect billions of data points on users.

For starters, Facebook alone has 98 personal data points on its 2.2 billion users , totaling 215.6 billion data points.

Even more impressive is Google. Between the company’s seven unique products with over 1 billion monthly active users each, Google collects enough personal data from its users over the course of one year to equal 569,555 sheets of paper . If printed and stacked, this would measure more than 189 ft. tall.

Starting with the pre-internet days, the timeline below shows how it has changed since the beginning. Then, a deeper look at how online advertising has completely revolutionized the practice in recent decades.

The evolution of advertising: the very beginning

Although the very first signs of advertising are said to date back to the ancient Egyptians’ steel carvings in 2000 BC, the first print ad was published in 1472 when William Caxton printed ads for a book and tacked them to church doors in England:

Fast forward to 1704, the first newspaper ad was published in the U.S.:

Then, in 1835, the first U.S. billboards displayed circus posters measuring over 50 sq. ft.:

Sears was the first company to focus more on personalization by advertising through direct mail. When they launched their massive direct mail campaign in 1892 with 8,000 postcards, it produced 2,000 new orders.

Then came the “Golden Age,” where advertising personalization began to take off even more...

The “Golden Age of Advertising”

Advertising became a whole movement when it came to radio and television in the early 1900s. Since it was speaking to people directly through their radios and TVs, it felt more personalized.

Advertising first hit the radio in 1922. Radio host H.M. Blackwell created his own “indirect direct” method -- a 10-minute talk about the virtues of living a carefree life at the Hawthorne Court Apartments in Jackson Heights, Queens. The cost for a 10-minute time slot was $50.

Personalization took another big leap in 1930 when Rosser Reeves introduced the idea of a unique selling proposition . Since a USP (aka unique value proposition) describes how your business will solve a customer’s problem, it should be very specific and highly personalized to differentiate your brand.

In 1935, George Gallup introduced market research -- gathering information about consumers to better relate and advertise to them.

The next major milestone in the evolution of advertising timeline came on July 1, 1941, when the first legal and continental commercial popped up on TV screens on WNBT. Although this Bulova Watch Company ad was brief (only a 10-second spot for a simple graphic and voiceover):

…it set the precedent for the next 70 years .

TV viewers began to feel optimistic, despite the 50s being tense for America during the Cold War. They started opening their wallets more as prosperity began to rise again -- and a large part of this was due to a change in advertising tactics (not just mediums). This was called the “ Golden Age of Advertising ” -- a time of big ideas and huge personalities during the 1960s through the late 1980s.

Companies began building characters around their products to establish more of a connection between viewers and brands. Tony the Tiger for Frosted Flakes, or the Snap, Crackle, and Pop gnomes for Rice Krispies -- both of which are still seen on cereal boxes today:

Famous faces, like the Marlboro Man from the 1960s to 1990s, were also often used to sell products:

Among all the different characters that emerged, the ads at this time had one main purpose: to sell. While the characters played a major part in creating an ad culture for consumers, the product was always at the forefront.

That is until online advertising came about, and with it came several major game-changers in the evolution of advertising and personalization.

This next period was known for introducing new channels and mediums and a drastic shift in motive. Rather than selling, the evolution of ads lead to a focus on brand awareness and problem-solving. What is the consumer’s problem, and how can the product solve it? Now the product was no longer the centerpiece of the ad -- the consumer was.

This all started when internet usage took off in 1992 with the introduction of online services like America Online and Prodigy. When everyone suddenly began using the internet for personal reasons, advertisers jumped all over the opportunity to reach consumers there. They began shifting their attention to more digital ads, starting with display advertising.

The evolution of display advertising began with the very first banner ad from AT&T in 1994:

About 44% of the people who saw the ad clicked it, and when they did, they landed here:

Although the page lacked any optimization, the ad set off a chain reaction that altered the course of the advertising industry, and banner ads caught on extremely quickly.

In 1995, Yahoo transformed itself from a web directory to a commercial business . The company announced an advertising deal for their own primitive banner ads, with five sponsor company logos rotating daily across the top of the site:

During this same year, Yahoo also created the first keyword-based ad.

The chain reaction continued into the next year when Planet Oasis launched the first version of PPC advertising , and Open Text began selling paid ads.

Mobile advertising came next, as mobile phones came into existence.

The evolution of mobile advertising

The first mobile ad showed up in 2000 when a Finnish news provider sent free news headlines via SMS. This led to more experimental mobile ads and mobile marketing initiatives down the road.

When the original iPhone was released in 2007, mobile advertising came to smartphones . However, still new to the medium, advertisers would simply reformat their desktop ads for mobile, meaning they weren’t well-designed and didn’t provide an ideal user experience. In response to widespread negative feedback from these first smartphone ads, advertisers began making their ads “mobile-first.”

The launch of the App Store in 2008 with the iPhone 3G allowed advertisers to take advantage of mobile app ads instead of mobile web browser ads. Then, as capabilities grew to include things like interactive gaming and GPS technology, mobile ads started incorporating these features for a more personalized and engaging user experience.

With the drastic evolution of online and mobile advertising, also brought challenges. Here’s a brief look at a few of them, along with the solutions that followed.

Digital advertising: challenges and solutions

Lack of trust.

Despite advertisers’ best efforts to appeal more to consumers with new methods and mentality, many viewers remain wary of advertisements. In particular -- pop ups, auto-playing videos, ads that push the main content below the fold, full-screen ads, ads that increase load times, and deceptive ads.

Research shows that Millennials are the most skeptical of ads. And since this is the first generation to grow up attached to the internet, social media, smartphones, tablets, laptops, etc., they have the most purchasing power and are the most important audience for many businesses.

Ad blockers

Audiences actively choose to avoid ads while they browse the internet. People will even pay if it means they can bypass sitting through ads. In 2015 alone, this cost publishers up to $22 billion in revenue -- a clear sign that advertisers needed to change their tactics.

Fortunately for advertisers, they have since developed ad formats and marketing strategies to combat ad blockers.

User-generated content

Most consumers trust other consumers before they trust brands. Hence the rise of user-generated content. Essentially, consumers have become a part of advertising, rather than just passive onlookers.

This marketing strategy became especially popular when social media advertising began in 2008, starting with Facebook ads :

Consumers are much more likely to communicate their feelings over social media these days. They also communicate with one other far more than any ad campaign can communicate with them. For example, when evaluating a purchase, people often turn to friends and social networks to get additional opinions. That’s why it’s so important to build a community around your brand.

Facebook is perfect for this as it promotes user participation and engagement. When users find a product they show interest in -- they’re likely to share it, and then others tend to follow suit.

In the end, consumers want connectivity, trust, and assurance. They don’t necessarily want those from a brand. They want it from close, trusted sources -- and who’s more trustworthy than their own social communities?

Along with user-generated content and social media advertising, targeting options have also played a significant role in how digital advertisers reach prospects.

Targeting options

Advertisers today have billions of data points about consumers from Google and Facebook .

Over the course of one year, Google collects enough personal data from its users to equal 569,555 sheets of paper . If printed and stacked, this would measure more than 189 ft. tall. Google’s data points include:

• Apps used and websites created
• Searches and bookmarks
• Emails, contacts, and calendar data
• Google Drive files
• Google hangout sessions
• YouTube videos
• Photos taken on your phone
• Music listened to

Facebook alone has 52,000 data points , including:

• Every message you’ve ever sent or received
• Likely interests based off things you’ve liked and commented on
• Stickers you’ve sent
• Every time you log in, where you logged in from, what time, and from what device
• Every app you’ve ever had connected to your account
• Access to your webcam and microphone at any time
• Phone contacts, emails, calendar, call history, messages, downloaded files, games, photos and videos, music, search history, browsing history, etc.

With so many data points available to advertisers, they’re able to create extremely targeted and personalized ads. Case in point, this one from Marvel Universe Live, who knows my geographical location and family make-up (mom of two boys):

Hyper-targeting is critical because if digital advertisers can access data points like these, but also birthdays, marital status, family composition, occupation, type of car owned, etc. -- then the ads people see will be more relevant to them.

The evolution of advertising includes the post-click stage

Advertising has experienced many changes from the ancient Egyptian etchings to print ads, to the Golden Age, to today -- where highly-targeted, personalized online ads are the only way to succeed in today’s marketing world.

Show ads and promote ideas that people want to see and hear. Because the more people don’t see your content as an “ad,” the more they’ll be attracted to it, engage with your brand, and eventually purchase.

The ad click isn’t the end goal, though. After optimizing the pre-click stage, the post-click stage must match it. Get the most of your post-click marketing optimization opportunities, sign up for an Instapage Enterprise demo today.

Try the world's most advanced landing page platform with a risk-free trial.

by Fahad Muhammad

Fahad is a Content Writer at Instapage specializing in advertising platforms, industry trends, optimization best practices, marketing psychology, and SEO. He has been writing about landing pages, advertising trends, and personalization for 11+ years.

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