HISTORY OF

ADVERTISING
According to Singer (1994), advertising is…

“A key element in economic history as well as our

social, technological, artistic, and cultural histories…
[and] perhaps one of the keys to the understanding of
the evolution of our complex urban society.”
 PRELITERATE PERIOD: 3000-400 BC
o Long before America was colonized, commerce flourished in the Old World
where various methods were used to promote trade. Notice boards placed
outside houses indicated what could be had within. Wine sellers gave free
samples in the streets. And actors paraded in the streets attempting to entice
onlookers into theatres. The idea of commerce is very old indeed.

o For the first thousand years, people used advertising to promote two things: 1)
Locations and; 2) Services.

o During this period, it likely comes as little surprise that literacy levels were
low and people’s writing skills were limited. Because of this, much of the
communication that took place in society was by way of symbols.

o During this period, people sometimes carved messages in clay or stone.

o In 1200 BC, Phoencians, which was an ancient civilization, painted messages

on stones near the paths where people often walked as a way to get messages
out to the people.

o Their alphabet was considered to be the first one that had a consistent form.
Their messages often centered around biblical ideologies.
 PRELITERATE PERIOD: 3000-400 BC
o In 6th Century BC, town criers were required by the courts to make public
announcements. They were to dress in a way that would clearly establish their
position within society and ring a bell to gain the public’s attention. They
would say “oyez, oyez” which meant “hear ye, hear ye.” Sometimes they would
carry sign boards to announce the arrival of ships coming to port.

o Some of the advantages of having a town crier was that they were able to
reach large audiences because they could go where the people were. Since it
was known that their position was to relay important information, their voices
were persuasive.

o Some of the disadvantages of town criers was that they were

transient, costly, and sometimes unreliable due to weather or
personality issues.

o The town crier was the first state sanctioned form of

advertising since they were employed to get messages out to
the public and they were the most common throughout
history.
 CLASSICAL PERIOD: 400 BC – 1400 AD
o During this period, oral media continued to dominate and the town crier was still
the most frequent form of advertising since the levels of literacy remained low.

o This was when we started to see more forms of street advertising and it remains
the dominant form for most of history. The town crier was included in this type of
advertising.

o Merchants started to advertise their businesses and products in the streets using
iconic indicators like pictures or slogans. Important events or services started to
be advertised on public walls. A person during this period might see contests,
religious festivals or other events being advertised. They may also see
advertisements for products such as bathes and awnings.

o Other forms of street advertising may be personal classified advertising. People

wanted to inform the public if their wives or slaves had run away, or if they had
wine or other goods for sale. They also may have wanted to let the public know if
they had a house they wished to lease or rooms to rent.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600
 Generally speaking, advertising became a part of the North American experience
long before the settlers arrived. This was in part due to the invention of the
brochure meant to attract settlers to this land.

 They were first published in England in the 17th Century and in some cases even
earlier as a way of attracting people.

 Quickly, the brochure became known for being chalked full of hopeful
overstatements, half-truths and downright lies. Alongside some facts, brochures
contained promises for gold and silver, fountains of youth, waters filled with fish,
copious amounts of venison (deer meat).

 Most of the time, while buyers may have gotten some of what they were
promised, they rarely received the full amounts of these items that they were
promised. Knowing that settlers came to North American with false promises, it
makes us wonder.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600
o How long might it have taken to settle this continent if there had not been such
promotion by enterprising advertisers?

o How has American civilization been shaped by the fact that there was a kind of
natural selection here of those people who were willing to believe advertising?

o “Never was there a more outrageous or more unscrupulous or more ill-informed

advertising campaign than that by which the promoters for the American colonies
brought settlers here” writes historian Daniel Boorstin, 1972.

o We can still see some remnants of this type of advertising occurring in advertising
today although these marketers might be slapped with some sort of action for
these types of extreme advertising.

o Presbrey, Frank. The History and Development of Advertising. New York:

Doubleday, Doran & Co., 1929. p. 114.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600

An English Ad Promoting Migration to America,

1609
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600

o During the late middle ages, the town crier, sometimes called bellmen
continued to be popular ways of getting messages across.

o Street advertising also continued to be popular to convey important public

announcements as well as commercial announcements.

o Although the printing press was first invented by a man named Bi Sheng in
China in 1051, the printing press became more efficient and popular when a
man named Gutenberg independently invented it in 1450.

o Gutenberg was a goldsmith by profession and

developed a complete printing system. His newly
devised hand mold made it possible to create
precise and rapid movable type in large quantities.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600
o This rapid movement and precise detail made the printing press profitable for
advertising.

o Now, instead of having town criers, many businesses and city officials began to use
posters to deliver their messages.

o In 1480, the first poster was used in England to advertise a rule book for priests
and soon after advertisement posters began to appear on public buildings.

o The invention of the printing press and advancement of posters meant that
literacy was spreading and soon there were advertisements for books becoming
prominent in the landscape.

o Handbills and posters were very popular and they were used to promote events
and recruit men for the military.

o They were also used to create signs outside of taverns and Inns, outside of shops
and to promote services, for instance a bootmaker might have a sign outside his
home to promote his services.
 An Early Handbill Introducing Coffee to
Londoners, 1657

o The ad explains that the upper classes

(the grand seigniors, or lords) drink
coffee. Endorsement by high-status
consumers is also often used in
contemporary advertising, but
celebrities rather than feudal lords are
held up as models to emulate.

o It is a simple innocent thing, composed

into a Drink, by being dryed in an
Oven, and ground to Powder, and
boiled up with Spring water, and about
half a pint of it to be drunk, fasting an
hour before, and not Eating an hour
after, and to be taken as hot as possibly
can be endured; the which will never
fetch the skin off the mouth, or raise
any Blisters by reason of that Heat.

o The long copy of the ad gives more

details.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600
o A careful reading of the text provides a window on 17th-century advertising
techniques and tells a story about the social life and cultural beliefs of the
England into which coffee was introduced. The ad explains what coffee is, how it
grows, and where it comes from.

o The Grain or Berry called Coffee, growth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of
Arabia. It is brought from thence...

o Most contemporary advertisements do not introduce new products but serve

instead to encourage current users to continue and those who are not yet current
users to purchase the advertised brand.

o An advertisement for coffee today might argue for the merits of the promoted
brand and proclaim its excellence over the competition. In this announcement
from 1657, it is generic coffee that is advertised. Brands as we know them did not
exist. It would be many years before branding emerged in the marketplace.
 MIDDLE AGES: 1400-1600
o In the 2nd half of 17th century we begin to see ads for health products – cures and
remedies

o Coffee, like tea, in this period was thought of more medicinally than it is today. It
almost seems that every known malady would be alleviated by coffee. After these
claims about the benefits of coffee to anyone and everyone, the advertisement
moves on to target specific kinds of consumers.

o “It is known by experience to be better then any other Drying Drink for People in
years, or Children that have any running humors upon them...It is very good to
prevent Mis-carryings in Child-bearing Women...’

o And finally the claims return to the general.

o “It is a most excellent Remedy against the Spleen, Hypocondriack, Winds, or the
like. It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for business, if one have occasion
to Watch, and therefore you are not to Drink it after supper, unless you intend to
be watchful, for it will hinder sleep 3 or 4 hours.”
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900
o Ads for health products – cures and remedies – flourished.
“Indispenable to the health
and happiness of millions of
human beings who may be
living sedentary lives
through choice or necessity…
No dwelling-house is
completely furnished without
The Health Jolting Chair.”
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900

o The chair claimed to be a product of scientific modern society that was able to:
o give efficient exercise
o provide nutrition to the organs
o be comfortable
o be inexpensive
o preserve health, get rid of disease, prolong life.

o After hearing all of that, I’m sure you all want to rush out and buy one! Wait…
only if they added in their ad that it would also complete your homework for you!

o The chair in reality just resulted in consumer anger and led to legislation that
required advertisers to be able to substantiate their claims. In 1938, the Federal
Trade Commission was given the power to protect consumers and competitors
from deceptive and unfair advertising.
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900

o In the Mass Media Period 1600 – 1900 we saw the development of new advertising medium – the
periodical.

o A periodical was publication that was produced at regular intervals. So, a periodical could be any
newspaper, magazine, an academic journal or even your high school year book.

o Technically, the newspaper existed for a long time before this, but it wasn’t able to reach large
amounts of readers until after the printing press was developed. With the invention of the
periodical, such as the newspaper, there became a new place where ads could appear.

o The first known newspaper ads appeared in Germany and it was an advertisement for a book about
plants. Later came ads for universities, zoos and religious tracts. In England during the mid 17 th
Century came ads for tea and coffee. In the second half of the 17 th Century, there was an abundance
of health ads.

o Soon classified and personal ads became common within periodicals advertising when there was
help wanted, lost or stolen items or professional notices from public teachers.

o It also allowed newspapers and greater levels of literacy to flourish.

 THE INVENTION OF THE PRINTING PRESS
o The printing press allowed us to share large amounts of information quickly and in
huge numbers. In fact, the printing press was so significant that it had come to be
known as one of the most important inventions of our time. It drastically changed
the way society evolved.

o Johannes Gutenberg, Goldsmith and inventor, was a political exile from Germany
when he began experimenting with printing in France in 1440. By 1450, he had
perfected a printing machine – the Gutenberg Press – and was ready to use
commercially. This started the ‘printing revolution’. Earlier attempts to create a
printing press resulted in very rudimentary devices.

o Gutenberg died penniless. An historian said, “Congratulations, you’ve printed 200

copies of the Bible; there are about three people in your town who can read the Bible
in Latin. What are you going to do with the other 197 copies?”

o The printing press turned out to be one of the most influential and important
inventions of all time. It spread knowledge and ideas to more people, more cheaply,
and more quickly than ever before. It fueled the Renaissance, during which
scientists, inventors, philosophers and artists changed the world.
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900
o The invention of the printing press led to the world of local newspapers beginning
in the 1800s where proprietors set up their own news agency, the Press
Association, as a means of exploiting a new era of cheap, telegraphed news. This
was very progressive, dynamic, future-oriented thinking for people in the
Victorian period.

o From the 1860s to the 1930s, the weekly local newspaper was the dominant form
of mass media. In Britain there had been more provincial papers than London-
based papers since the mid-1700s, but each title only sold a few hundred copies.
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900
o The first newspaper ads in Canada appeared in 1752 in the Halifax Gazette.

o There were ads for a grocer, a printer, and a tutor.

 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900
o With better printing capabilities came more creative ways of advertising.

Early 1800s
 MASS MEDIA PERIOD: 1600-1900
o In the mid 1800s we saw the introduction of the travelling salesman, which was an
important addition to advertising.

o Salesmanship entered the English language only in the 1800s (according to

the Oxford English Dictionary) and it differs from advertising in its use of face-to-
face rather than mass-mediated communications and selling techniques.

o The promotional and selling methods of salesmen are the important elements in
the history of advertising. Whether to a merchant, an assembled crowd, or just a
single customer, a salesman displayed his merchandise and adjusted his pitch to
the needs and interests of his audience.

o Holding a mythical bottle of "snake oil" in his hand, he could look out into a crowd
and say to an old lady that his product could cure arthritis, to a young man that it
would grow hair, and to someone else that it was a toothache remedy.

o Whether largely alcohol or cocaine or a medicine that really worked, the product
was offered through a specially tailored message unlike the generalized pitches in
mass advertisements.

o Some scholars see salesmanship as a stage in the evolution of the modern

persuasive techniques used in advertising, although this is not usually emphasized
as a part of the history of American advertising.
 MID 1800S: THE TRAVELLING SALESMAN

o There were 3 types of the travelling salesman.

1. Salesmen would travel around their territory

representing their companies and visiting shopkeepers
to encourage them to carry their products.

2. Door-to-door salesmen would travel their territory

knocking of people’s doors selling products. Watkins
and Fuller Brush were 2 companies that used this
method to sell their products. People would wait for the
company salesman to arrive to order new products.

3. The ‘travelling man’ would pull into a town and

set up his wagon, hawk his wares and be gone just
as quickly. A crowd would gather and he would
attempt to convince them to buy. He would be
very much a showman – often selling elixirs that
were actually ineffective.
 MID 1800S: THE TRAVELLING SALESMAN
o A mythology grew up around the ‘traveling man’. Vast numbers of such men
made their livings this way in the 19th century.

o These ‘commercial travelers’ (as historians often term them) were typically white
men without families who traveled by public transport, stayed in rented rooms,
and skipped town fast.

o They became the stuff of jokes and mythology – perhaps because their work and
personal lives contrasted so strongly with the lives of those who lived in small-
town America.

o The linking of salesman with con-man in this depiction reflects the public's
frequent suspicion of a forceful salesman whose ‘guarantees’ and wild promises
are unenforceable unlike they would be with local merchants who would still be
around if something goes wrong.
 MID 1800S: THE TRAVELLING SALESMAN

There are no audio recordings or videotapes of 19th century salesman at work,

but the depiction in the video suggests how salesmen are often remembered.
"Say Say Say by Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson." YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aLEhh_XpJ-0
2 min.
 SALESMANSHIP VS ADVERTISING
o What are the similarities and differences between salesmanship and advertising?

o Although both are persuasive techniques encouraging consumer purchasing, one is

interpersonal in nature whereas the other is mediated. The consequence of this
difference is a shift from individually tailored messages to those that must be
relevant to a broad and diverse audience.

o Both the unregulated sales tactics and advertising claims of the 19th century
created suspicion on the part of consumers, making many people wary of the actual
truth in the communications.

o Both salesmen and advertisers work as intermediaries between sellers and buyers
– a role not much appreciated in American society where dislike of all sorts of
intermediaries (advertisers, lawyers, brokers, and agents) is frequently a part of
the culture.

o A final important point of comparison is that both salesman and advertisers must
attempt to understand the consumer's viewpoints, needs, and wants in order to do
their jobs well.
 THE CREATION OF BRANDS
o With the industrial revolution and an influx of products being made available at
lower prices, we saw a move from salemanship to media advertising. With that, we
saw the creation of the brand.

o Manufacturing Branding Advertising

o Brands have material markers – names, logos, and unique packaging and designs.
But beyond these essential physical attributes, over time a brand acquires a
history, a reputation, and a meaning to consumers. In other words, it takes on a
‘personality’.

o As brands emerged in the late 1800s in America, advertising played a significant

role in giving commodities with specific meanings. Ivory soap was no longer called
‘white soap’ but is identified by its name. It had a distinctive appearance, logo, and
package design that hasn't changed much over the years.

o Prior to branding, shoppers would go to a general store with a list and buy pickles
from a barrel, a pound of flour from a sack, and spices from a tin. After the
introduction of branding shoppers would go to a shop and choose from various
brands of pickles, flour, and spices displayed on shelves – each of them being
advertising as having specific qualities.
 MID 1800S: ADVERTISING AGENCIES
o As America recovered from the Civil War (1861-1865), commerce and newspapers
once again took their place in the fabric of society.

o In the 1860s and 1870s, the forerunners of modern advertising agents came on
the scene. Initially, they offered to physically take ads from the shops of busy
tradesmen to the offices of newspaper publishers. Businesses found this service
very desirable.

o Early agencies collected circulation figures of newspapers and magazines and

based their commissions on readership. It was a short step from media
placement to another service that indeed marked the beginnings of modern
advertising.

o Advertising agents offered to write the copy for ads that would be placed in
newspapers.

o By the turn of the 20th century, several advertising agencies had set up business
in cities across America, marking the beginnings of a shift away from direct sales
techniques to mass-communicated advertising.
MID 1800S: ADVERTISING AGENCIES
o Ads also informed consumers about a product in
order to convince them to choose a particular
brand; however, deception was sometimes used.

o For example, ads for Schiltz beer told consumers

that their beer bottles were steam cleaned before
they were refilled for sale; therefore, their beer
would be safer and superior in taste.

o This, of course, was a good feature; however, all

beer companies at the time steam cleaned their
bottles.

o Schiltz was forced to remove this fact from its ads.

 LIFESTYLE ADVERTISING
o Advertising agencies created ads that marketed a lifestyle,
rather than just a product. An early example of this was ads
for Arrow shirts. There was little information about the
product in ads, but the images of the lifestyles of men
wearing the shirts suggested to men that they could enjoy a
similar lifestyle.

o Marlboro cigarettes has been extremely successful in

marketing its brand using this approach. It created the
Marlboro Man in the 1950s to represent the all-American man
as being ‘master of his destiny’, symbolizing individualism,
independence, and masculinity.

o Interestingly, 5 men who appeared in Marlboro ads died of

smoking-related diseases, thus earning Marlboro cigarettes,
specifically Marlboro Reds, the nickname ‘cowboy killers’. One
of the men’s widows sued the company.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wibHcZ4FNbU
1 min.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3mlO2bzHV8
to 3:50 min.
 20TH CENTURY MASS MEDIA: 1900-1920
o By the beginning of the 20th century, a consumer movement emerged protesting
the outrageous and unsupported claims of both the traveling salesmen and mass
media advertising.

o When Arthur Miller famously wrote about the failed Willy Loman in Death of a
Salesman in 1949, his play captured the pitfalls of sales work for those who do it
and the demise of the social niche of the salesman in the face of the evolution of
mass, impersonal advertising techniques.

o During this period, urbanization really began to advance and this was needed for
advertising to flourish in the way it has.

o This is referred to as the Great Transition, which occurred at the turn of the
century

o In 1908 we see the creation of the first Canadian advertising journal called
“Economic Advertising”.
 THE GREAT TRANSITION
o During the Great Transition, there were 3 important elements to consider.

1. With technological advances printing could be done faster with superior

results. Colour and photography made ads more interesting.

2. Advertising as an industry became institutionalized, which made it more

credible and legitimate.

3. During this period we started to see some attempts at establishing Codes of

Ethics and regulatory boards to monitor ads and stop misleading or
unscrupulous ads from being used.
REGULATING EARLY ADVERTISING
o The codes and boards attempted to put an end
to outrageous advertising and, specifically,
advertising of medicinal products.

o It generally was an attempt to professionalize

the industry.

o Many of the codes and boards that were

initially established are still in control today,
although their power isn’t necessarily always
absolute.

o Early steps in an incipient consumer

movement in the US led to more profound
changes. The Federal Trade Commission with
its regulatory powers was established by
Congress in 1914.

o In the early 1900s in the US the Federal

government even tried to outlaw broadcast
advertising.
 REGULATING EARLY ADVERTISING

o By the turn of the 20th century, the public had grown increasingly weary of the
deceptive promotion techniques.

o In 1905, Collier's magazine began publishing a series of essays entitled, The

Great American Fraud. These essays captured the spirit of consumer discontent.

o “Gullible America will spend this year some seventy-five millions of dollars in
the purchase of patent medicines. In consideration of this sum it will swallow
huge quantities of alcohol, an appalling amount of opiates and narcotics, a wide
assortment of varied drugs ranging from powerful and dangerous heart
depressants to insidious liver stimulants; and, far in excess of all other
ingredients, undiluted fraud. For fraud, exploited by the skilfullest of
advertising bunco men, is the basis of the trade. Should the newspapers, the
magazines, and the medical journals refuse their pages to this class of
advertisements, the patent medicine business in five years would be as
scandalously historic as the South Sea Bubble, and the nation would be the
richer not only in lives and money, but in drunkards and drug-fiends saved.”
o Samuel Hopkins Adams, 1905
 EARLY 1900S: ADVERTISING AND WAR
o During World War I we started to see advertising to sell bonds and also to
recruit men to the armed forces. Women were even targeted by some of this
advertising with the men having gone away.

o It is a misconception that women never worked because many of them did even
prior to the war, but they were not allowed into certain professions.

o During the war, women were needed to work in the factories, as doctors and
nurses, etc., and the advertisements reflected this.
 MID 1900S: AGE OF SOCIAL INSECURITY
o During the Age of Social Insecurity, advertisements for things that were never
thought of before began to be created. For instance, with the introduction of
products, like soap, toothpaste, shampoo, etc. people suddenly became concerned
with body odor, bad breath, and poor etiquette.

o This type of advertising became a determinant of human consciousness and people

began to become insecure which lead to mass production of certain goods.

o This is the beginning of advertisers’ strategy to have consumers believe that they
had to use certain products to be socially acceptable, admired, popular, and even
happier. Of course, that strategy forms the basis of most advertising today.
 THE CONSUMER IS CREATED

o The ‘consumer’ was created, and,

subsequently, there was a major
rise in consumerism. Shopping
became a leisure activity and
‘Cathedrals of Consumption’ were
created.

o ‘Scientific advertising’ took hold during this period. In the early 1900s, companies
began hiring agencies to do market research. Research into the psyche of consumer
was done, and the ‘laws of human behaviour’ were studied. Behavioural scientists,
like John B. Watson, participated in these studies.

o This research developed to allow for marketers to be able to better understand the
behaviour of the consumer so that products were suitable for the populations.

o Research techniques have advanced, so now MRI

type technologies can study brain activities to
analyze what appeals to potential consumers and
what content they find distasteful, uninteresting,
etc.
 MID 1900S - ELECTRONIC AGE
o Commercial television developed after World War II. By the late 1940s, cities like
New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles had functioning local television stations. By
the early 1950s, three major networks (NBC, CBS, and ABC) supplied national
programming. Most early broadcasts were live, in black-and-white and aired only
a few hours each night.

o This was when advertising began to create, amplify, and guide parts of the
general social structure in the ways we recognize today. It was during this period
that the consumer we know today was really created.

o By 1980 99% of Americans had televisions. The television matched the social
impact of printing press. It was able to synchronize the behaviour of millions of
viewers.
 MID 1900S - ELECTRONIC AGE
o Television could show realistic images of real people actually using and
enjoying the products being advertised. Their testimonials made it easier to
convince viewers to make a purchase.

1950's Kool Aid Commercial –

YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watc 1 min.
h?v=m7t9YlMxWoE
2 min.
 USING ‘EXPERTS’ TO SELL
o Advertisers began to use celebrities and ‘experts’ to sell
products. They proved to be very successful, especially in
television advertisements. Marlboro cigarettes ‘created’ its
own celebrity – the Marlboro Man

o It is quite different to see ads for cigarettes, since they have

been banned in the 70s.
 LIFESTYLE ADVERTISING
o There’s no better example of a successful advertising man than David Ogilvy.
He has been called one of the world’s best ad men. He literally wrote the book
that defined an entire profession, and it’s as relevant today as it was thirty
years ago when first published.

o David Ogilvy, on his way to a photo shoot for his new shirt-maker client,
stopped off at a New York drugstore to buy a few 50 cent black eyepatches and
unwittingly blazed the trail for a new style of advertising.

o It was 1951, and Ogilvy’s client was CF Hathaway, a

small shirt-maker from Maine. The company, having
never advertised before, was planning to spend just
$30,000 to compete with much better-known brands.

o Ogilvy knew he must do something unorthodox.

Although he had toyed with the idea of using an
eyepatch as part of the campaign, it wasn’t
uppermost in his mind.
 LIFESTYLE ADVERTISING
o Handing over the eyepatches to the photographer, Ogilvy told him: "Just shoot a
couple of these to humour me. Then, I’ll go away and you can do the serious job.“
Later, having seen the results, Ogilvy admitted: "We knew we’d got something."

o Without the eyepatch, the Hathaway campaign would have been a simple example
of shirt advertising with a well-dressed man shot against an opulent background.
With the eyepatch, the ads had what Ogilvy called ‘story appeal’, arousing reader
curiosity. How, they wondered, had the man lost his eye?

o The ad’s impact was immediate. Its first insertion in The New Yorker cost just
$3,176. Within a week, every Hathaway shirt in the city was sold. Ogilvy claimed to
have been bemused by it all. He said of the eyepatch: "For some reason I’ve never
known, it made Hathaway instantly famous. Perhaps, more to the point, it made me
instantly famous."
 THE HIDDEN PERSUADERS
o The Hidden Persuaders, is “a brisk, authoritative, and frightening report on how
manufacturers, fundraisers, and politicians are attempting to turn the American
mind into a kind of catatonic dough that will buy, give or vote at their command.” –
The New Yorker

o Originally published in 1957, it was reprinted to celebrate its 50th anniversary.

o The Hidden Persuaders is Vance Packard’s pioneering and prescient work revealing
how advertisers use psychological methods to tap into our unconscious desires in
order to ‘persuade’ us to buy the products they are selling. It is a classic
examination of how our thoughts and feelings are manipulated by business, media,
and politicians.

o It was the first book to expose the hidden world of motivation research,•the
psychological technique that advertisers use to probe our minds in order to control
our actions as consumers.

o Through analysis of products, political campaigns, and television programs of the

1950s, Packard shows how the insidious manipulation practices that had come to
dominate a corporate-driven world.
 2000S – INFORMATION SOCIETY
o The final stage is the information society, which is where Singer would say we are
today.
o It should be noted that there is no consensus on what an information society is
and that scholars are still debating what should be included in this idea.
o In this period, the creation, distribution, diffusion, use, integration and
manipulation of information is an economic, political and cultural activity. This
means that all the ways we create and use information becomes an economic,
political and cultural activity.
o In this type of period, the way to get a competitive edge with marketing is to be
able to use the IT or information technology in creative and productive ways.
o The information society includes technological, economic, occupational, spatial,
and cultural change (or sometimes a combination of all of these).
o This period is believed to be the successor to the industrial society that we
mentioned before. Instead of seeing advancements in the creation of assembly
lines, the information society sees changes in the way we access and distribute
knowledge and information.
o We can see the shift from the traditional industry that the industrial revolution
brought through industrialization, to an economy that is based on the
manipulation of information.
 2000S – INFORMATION SOCIETY
o The Internet became an essential part of American society in the 1990s.
Computers replaced typewriters, and email established itself as a necessity.
Today, instantaneous communication with people everywhere is simple, and
information on almost any topic is just a few keystrokes away.

o Mass media began to decline with the advent of cable television in the 1970s. Until
then, viewing options were limited and audiences were broad. Ads on cable,
because of the proliferation of specialized programming, created more targeted
groups of viewers with more narrowly defined interests.

o Broadcasting became narrowcasting, and advertising became more focused as

well. For example, Home and Garden channel viewers get advertisements for
paint and other building products, while Travel Channel viewers see ads for
airlines and vacation spots.
 2000S – INFORMATION SOCIETY
o The Internet narrows the aim further, not reaching households but targeting
individuals. Marketers use Internet surfing habits to establish the interests and
buying habits of individuals, making advertising more efficient.

o A repersonalization of messages is occurring – ironically bringing advertising back

around to speaking more individually to potential customers. Advertising has
become very innovative in finding ways to communicate promotional messages.

o As technology has evolved, it has revolutionized advertising techniques as well as

changing the social landscape – the industry is reinventing itself, discovering new
media, and developing new techniques – as it has done recently with viral
marketing, social media, and mobile apps.
 2020S – SOCIAL MEDIA ADVERTISING
o While there are hundreds of different marketing strategies, social media
advertising is the only one that can bring in consistent sales right away. Social
media advertising, or social media targeting, are advertisements served to users on
social media platforms.

o Social networks utilize user information to serve highly relevant advertisements

based on interactions within a specific platform. In many instances, when target
market aligns with the user demographics of a social platform, social advertising
can provide huge returns for a low cost.

o Some examples of the social media platforms where ads

can be found are

 Social networking (Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+).

 Microblogging (Twitter, Tumblr).
 Photo sharing (Instagram, Snapchat, Pinterest).
 Video sharing (YouTube, Facebook Live, Periscope,
Vimeo).
 COMMERCIALIZING SPACES
o As contemporary advertising searches for new venues for marketing
communications and new ways of attracting consumers, two trends are
particularly noteworthy.

o First, marketers continue to imagine new places for ads. In the Italian city of
Venice, for example, companies that have funded preservation and renovation
projects have been rewarded with venues where advertisements were
unimaginable in the past. And as you say, companies are attempting to place ads
in orbit.

o Although yet to be realized, there have been a number of proposals for advertising
in space that would be visible from earth.

o Such proposals have met with resistance thus far, but the fact that advertising is
seeking to colonize space in order to make it a marketing venue is significant.

o Second, as you saw in the earlier lecture, advertising now uses the human body
itself as a site for marketing communications. It has already been doing this for
decades, of course, in the logos that appear on clothing apparel. There are already
instances where these logos of brands have become literal brands on the human
body.
 COMMERCIALIZING SPACES

Satellite in Orbit

In Venice