You have probably wondered at some point, since when do advertisements originate? The advertising history It is much older than it seems. Check out its evolution in this article!
The history of advertising is older than you think.
Know the history of advertising: What is it and where does it originate?
Surely throughout your life you have seen advertisements. They are everywhere. Advertising allows promoting the goods and services provided by a person or company, helps politicians to become known and promote their campaigns, makes certain groups of people be guided by certain ideas or behave in certain ways, etc. It is a way of disseminating information with the aim of persuading, doing scientific, psychological, mathematical and economic studies.
La advertising history It is much older than it seems. It is necessary that, if there is an article or promotion that wants to be known, there is advertising. In ancient Babylon, a clay tablet was found that had inscriptions for an ointment merchant, a shoemaker, and a scribe. This tablet dates from 2000 BC! Amazing!
Advertising of the ancient and medieval times
Ancient civilizations
However, in Thebes, an Egyptian city that was then booming, a papyrus written by a weaver named Hapu was found, which is preserved in the British Museum in London. In the document he denounced that one of his slaves had escaped, and, after describing the slave, offered a reward for his capture. This one said:
Whoever returns it to the store of Hapú, the weaver, where the most beautiful fabrics are woven to suit each one, you will be given a gold piece.
Hapú used the document where he made an arrest complaint to advertise his store and products.
Another of the oldest known advertising records is a clay tablet found in Babylon, dating to 2000 BC, which had inscriptions for an ointment merchant, a scribe, and a cobbler.
Ancient Greece
Classical Greece was not exempt from advertisements during its heyday. However, most of their announcements were made out loud; It is what is known as a preacher. These, between shouts and sometimes accompanied by some music, announced the arrival of commercial boats, hired by merchants and the State. However, not everyone could be a crier, to do that job they had to have a good voice and diction. Criers sometimes quoted rhyming texts written by poets that advertised services or products.
Another of the advertising strategies used by the Greeks was to use wooden or stone poles made in order to publish advertisements or notices on papyrus or parchment. These poles were called axons. They also used cylindrical columns with the same utility, called ktrees.
Roman empire
During the Roman Empire they continued to use town criers as commercial advertisers. In Rome they used wooden boards (alba and libelli) that contained permanent announcements about official notices, sales, shows and rents. They used engravings or woodcuts, woodblock engraving methods that were commonly used by the Catholic Church to announce holidays, Sundays, they used them at weddings and also at baptisms.
The transition: The dramatic change
During the Middle Ages, the previous advertising media were used, which, although they were the most used in their time, were not particularly effective or efficient. These methods were not able to spread widely in the territories.
In the century XV, specifically in 1452 is known to Gutenberg's bible, after the German goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg claimed that he could make several copies of the bible in much less time than it normally took. This book had been written with mobile typography, a method that would revolutionize the history of advertising and humanity, known as Printing Materials. Just a few years later, in 1479, the printed method had spread throughout Europe, thus reaching France, Rome, Italy, England and Spain.
The printing press made it possible to reproduce many copies of texts simultaneously, which made it a very prominent method of disseminating information. This allowed the birth of printed newspapers. The first print advertisement in a newspaper was made by Mercury Britannicus in 1625. About 6 years later they had already created the advertisement section.
The growth of populations and cities made it increasingly necessary to use printed advertising methods to reach the largest number of people.
The Industrial Revolution: The Accelerated Growth of Advertising
The history of advertising takes a leap during the industrial revolution in the nineteenth century. XVIII, time when developed countries grew massively. Large companies, manufacturers, industries, etc. were born. The number of products and services that could be sold and provided were immense. Advertising played a fundamental role in being able to carry out the dissemination of some type of trade.
In 1841, Volney B. Palmer founded the first advertising agency in Philadelphia, USA, with great success.
Intelligence and creativity became the routine of advertisements. These lost the information capacity becoming more persuasive. Now the announcements were not only spread by means of newspapers, also by the radio (broadcasting). Advertisers used social science studies to tap into the psychology of recipients: why should I use the product? They used methods of persuasion, language and writing. It is at this time when the concept of brands and their importance is born, and the product becomes the most important thing in advertising; the protagonist.
The birth of television also marked an important milestone in the history of advertising. Companies chose to pay for television commercials, which allowed them to appreciate clear audiovisual material, with more convincing messages about their products.
Once the means of advertising diffusion increase, it is the object of study to know what its effects are on society.
The Peak of Development: The Digital Age
The history of advertising has undoubtedly been marked by great achievements of human ingenuity and creativity. However, none of the aforementioned could reach the level of the most momentous change that was to come.
In the second half of the century XX, with the creation of personal computers and software systems, the most important technological advance of the era is born. Networks that allow the decentralized interconnection of computers, promote the transfer of information between them to other computers, and vice versa, giving rise to the Internet.
The internet is today the most widely used means of disseminating advertisements, since it allows the interconnection of people anywhere in the world. There are no limits to the ability to promote and spread advertisements on the internet, mainly on social networks.
The history of advertising was marked by these great milestones that influenced the development of populations. Today the ads have generated sources of employment, both directly and indirectly. They have contributed large revenues to business economies and, consequently, generated large capital from investment in advertising. A study revealed that the US, in 2018 alone, spent $210.000.000.000 on advertising alone, more than analysts had estimated.
Advertising Objectives
The objectives of advertising depend on the preferences of advertisers. Advertising has two goals:
- You must inform about the differences between the product in question and those of the competing brands, emphasizing the benefits that the beneficiary will obtain when consuming the product.
- It uses psychological means to persuade the consumer. The importance lies in the fact that it must increase the probability that the consumer will pay for the good or service influenced by the advertisement.
Marketing
It is the study of the behavior of the markets and evaluates the needs of a consumer. Its purpose is to attract and retain consumers by satisfying their consumption needs.
If you want to see more details about the history of advertising, watch this video.
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