Making An Impact

The wonderful world of advertising, nonetheless, so besotted with the adjective ‘new’, is anything but new.  Evidence of advertising has been found from as far back as the third century BC, in Babylonia.  That was the equivalent of today’s outside displays or hoardings – signs painted on walls.  Archeologists have uncovered many such signs, notably in the ruins of ancient Rome and Pompeii.  An early outdoor advertisement excavated in Rome offered property for rent.  A relic from Pompeii called the attention of travellers to the eating, drinking and bedding facilities of a nearby tavern, the latter with pre-sleep options.

In Britain’s medieval and largely illiterate times, town criers read public notices aloud.  As a lucrative sideline, they shouted the praises of produce from local merchants.  Later, criers became familiar sights on the streets of American colonial settlements.  From both sides of the Atlantic, these were the forerunners of the modern voice-overs for radio and television commercials.

The emergence of printed advertising hinged on the invention of the movable-typeface printing press in the mid-fifteenth century.  This breakthrough facilitated the mass distribution of posters and leaflets.  The first printed advertisement that we know about was in English, dated 1472.  It was a leaflet advertising a new prayer book.  Published in London, the first titled newspaper, Corante, appeared in 1621; the oldest surviving newspaper, Berrow’s Worcester Journal, traces its history back to 1690; the first newspaper advert is thought to have appeared in the American Boston NewsLetter of 1704, seeking a buyer for Long Island real estate; The Times in London published its first classified advert in 1867.

LEADING THE WAY

It was the British Isles that led the promotional way in the eighteenth century.  Handbills and trade cards extravagantly proclaiming the excellence and availability of sundry products and services became commonplace.  Junk mail was born.  Among the plethora of items on offer, probably nothing caused more excitement than the lure of the New World.  Promoting America was the first concerted and sustained advertising campaign in history.  It had a considerable impact on the speed and extent of emigration.

Very quickly, advertising became a well-established practice in young, colonial America, although the output was neither as appealing to the eye nor as cleverly crafted as the British material of the same era.  Arguably, the US advertising industry still is not able to match its British counterpart for quality, although it wins hands down for quantity of output. 

Historian Lewis Atherton said that, in general, early advertising was dreary, matter-of-fact and devoid of customer appeal. One advertisement was like most others.  So, not a lot has changed.

By the nineteenth century, newspapers as we know them today were evolving.  There were low cover prices (the penny press), large circulations and mass-interest content.  Satire, caricature and gossip were interlaced with news, opinion and advertising.

Paid-for adverts assumed significant financial importance.  Helping to meet the need, bring on the advertising agency.  It is generally agreed that the first agency was founded in London in the 1790s, and the first American agency started up around 50 years later in Pennsylvania, when Volney B Palmer set up shop to sell advertising space – and coal.

Agencies such as his were, in effect, sales agents for the publishers.  They bought large amounts of advertising space at discounted rates and resold them to advertisers at higher rates.  They bought wholesale and sold retail.  Publishers encouraged would-be advertisers to use their agents, thereby sidestepping the need to have direct sales forces and the hassle of collecting multi-payments.  When space was sold direct, the publishers charged the same retail rate as the agents.

In 1869 Volney B Palmer sold out to Francis Ayer, who established N W Ayer & Son, still around today.  Francis was the son, N W his father, who advanced the start-up dollars and insisted that the business bore his name, an egocentric agency trend that has continued unabated.  Clients included Singer Sewing Machines and Pond’s Beauty Cream.

Ayer was a pioneer of generating income from researching markets and producing the advert text and typesetting, selling the space at cost.  It was the start of advertising agencies becoming creative production houses, rather than simply space sales agents for publishers.

PACKAGING & BRANDING

Modern advertising really began in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.  The period witnessed the emergence of packaged goods from manufacturers, rather than the hitherto trading world of merchants and wholesalers.  What manufacturers could package, they could brand and advertise for sale, nationally as well as locally.  Moreover, the messages could – they must – reach out from being merely informative to becoming persuasive.

National advertisers in Britain and North America provided the publishing media and advertising agencies with huge opportunities.  There were more clients, more sophisticated clients.  Advertising had been awash with false claims and mistruths.  The newer type of advertiser would be seeking repeat business and so must earn the trust of the public by substantiating statements.  For these new firms, advertising would introduce products, suggest new uses for products and extend markets.  Manufacturers could pressure their distributors and retailers into brand loyalty by creating strong consumer demand for the brand.

As we moved into the twentieth century, advertising agencies were most definitely creative in nature.  Then as now, they were intermediaries between the mass media and advertisers.  But whereas before they had been committed to selling media space, now they were sellers of their clients’ products, using advertising as the vehicle.

DRAMATIC CHANGE

The most dramatic change since then has been the advent of broadcasting.  The monopoly of the BBC, free from advertising, was to delay the change in Britain.  In the United States, however, there were no such restrictions.  By the end of the 1920s American advertisers were making their own radio programmes and sponsoring others.  Soap companies were particularly active.  The early 1930s ushered in many radio drama series that were known as “soaps” after their sponsors.  Back to Britain, and Radio Caroline, broadcasting offshore, forced the government to allow the legal introduction of commercial radio, once it had backtracked from its threat of sending in Royal Navy gunboats to sink the airwaves pirates.

Television, first seen in the same decade as the soap dramas, took time to become popular because of the high costs involved, both in programme production and the purchase of TV sets.  By the 1950s the US economy was booming and the British public indulged itself in the new medium to see moving pictures of the coronation of youthful Elizabeth II (1953).  Television was commercialised from the start in the US and it was not long before ITV brought new vistas for British advertisers, too.  Through television, advertisers could promote the use of their products as never before.  Cinema, through-the-letterbox and outdoor advertising in its many forms had been added to the mix, but it was television that would dominate.

In spite of this strength, the print media – and regional newspapers in particular – would flourish.  Regional publications in the UK have rarely been stronger and are embracing on-line opportunities.

The Internet in particular has brought changes to the face of advertising yet again, as people are influenced by, and purchase, via their computers or tablets.  But on-line or traditional, the increasing cost of acquiring new customers is forcing advertisers to hold on to existing customers by tailoring products, services and messages to meet individual needs: and to improve quality and after-market support.  And so, while advertising will continue to persuade consumers, it will also help to provide them with what they really want, at long last.

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