Introduction
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, and the means of inducing others into exchange relationships was not far behind in its development.
An English Ad Promoting Migration to America, 1609
Once transplanted, advertising eventually flourished in the United States to rival other countries in prevalence and economic importance. Although some forms—radio and television commercials and Internet advertising, for example—are uniquely American, the history of advertising must begin in Europe.
This following are key moments in the development of modern American advertising practice. It focuses on two key themes: the development of advertising techniques, and the story encoded in advertisements about the society that produced them.
This history of advertising technique chronicles the movement from face-to-face selling messages to the stilted, repetitive, printed advertisements of early newspapers to the dynamism of mass communication by radio and television to the re-personalization of messages via cable, Internet, and direct mail. It is a story of sellers struggling to find the best means to attract buyers, and a parallel story of the public's reception, resistance, amusement, and annoyance.
The social history preserved in advertisements is like an archaeological record. It is not a simple, faithful chronology of society but an assortment of bits and pieces on which the passage of social life is inscribed. By their very nature, advertisements are fleeting and ephemeral. Once they serve their intended purpose, they are typically discarded and quickly replaced. But some ads survive, preserved in old newspapers and magazines, on wire and tape recordings, and in kinescopes and videotapes. These preserved advertisements can be studied in the present for what they reveal about our collective past. From them, we learn not only about the techniques of past advertising but also about the society that produced them and the lives of the people who wrote, read, and heard their messages.
2. European Precedents
We begin our story in the 1600s. Like the present, it was an age of globalization. A world that had seemed very grand and unknowable was being made smaller through exploration and discovery in the Elizabethan age. Sailing ships in unprecedented numbers set out from London to distant ports around the world—a conquest that would eventually lead to the development of the British Empire. At its height, British colonies around the world would form an empire on which, it would be said, the sun never set. This expansion included colonies in the New World that would later become the United States of America.
In addition to this outward expansion, the world came to England as well. Strange, unusual, and wonderful things were brought from far away ports: spices from India, carpets from Persia, tobacco and tomatoes from the New World, porcelain from China, and coffee from Arabia. Each of these commodities had to be introduced to the consuming public and integrated into their lives—and advertising was one of the means of doing so. This handbill announced the availability of coffee in London in 1657. Mercantilism was the most important motivating force in its early stages. There were many reasons settlers would decide to leave home and strike out for a new life abroad—religious, political, and economic being among the most important. But whatever specific reasons motivated colonial settlers, it must have required courage or desperation to give up home and family and cast your lot in an unknown land. Advertising played its role in fueling these dreams and aspirations. To promote colonial ventures, sponsors placed ads in British newspapers: ads that promised solutions to nagging problems, ads that offered the fulfillment of dreams and the realization of hopes.
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.
The Grain or Berry called Coffee, groweth upon little Trees, only in the Deserts of Arabia. It is brought from thence...
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. 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.
...and drunk generally throughout all the Grand Seigniors Dominions.
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.
The long copy of the ad gives more details. Coffee is simple to make, and here's how to consume it. Do this. Don't do that. It's better hot and on an empty stomach. Except for the quaint language, what is said here is hardly distinguishable from today's ads. It is easy to imagine a TV commercial for coffee moving through the similar steps: roasting the beans, grinding the coffee, adding fresh water, brewing it, and sitting down to enjoy a steaming mug of coffee.
WATCH THE FOLLOWING:
This Sanka Commercial from the 1960s describes the steps to buy, brew and drink coffee.
Excerpt from the printed advertisement above.
The Turks' drink at meals and other times, is usually Water, and their Dyet consists much of Fruit and the Crudities whereof are very much corrected by this Drink.... It is observed that in Turkey, where this is generally drunk, that they are not troubled with the Stone, Gout, Dropsie, or Scurvy, and that their Skins are exceeding clear and white.
The narrative moves on to reported benefits for those who already drink coffee. Turks, unlike the English, have a diet high in uncooked fruit. The ad claims that coffee will alleviate gastric discomfort, and that other problems known in England are absent among coffee-drinking Turks. In a modern advertisement, similar information might be given in the form of testimonial comments from satisfied users.
The quality of this Drink is cold and Dry...
It neither heats nor inflames...
It closeth the Orifice of the Stomack and fortifies the heat...
It's very good to help digestion...
It's of great use about 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, as well as in the morning...
It quickens the Spirits...
It makes the heart Lightsome...
It is good against sore Eys (better if you hold your Head over it and take in the Steem that way)...
It supplieth Fumes exceedingly, and therefore good against the Head-ach...
It will very much stop any Defluxion of Rheums...
It will prevent and help Consumption and the Cough of the Lungs...
It is excellent to prevent and cure the Dropsy, Gout, and Scurvy...
Coffee, like tea, in this period was thought of more medicinally than today. Indeed, 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.
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...
And finally the claims return to the general.
It is a most excellent Remedy against the Spleen, Hypocondriack, Winds, or the like.
It will prevent Drowsiness, and make one fit for busines, 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.
Modern readers might be skeptical about many of these claims, but the warning about the stimulating effects of coffee works well today. "Drink it to stay awake, and don't drink it if you want to sleep." And finally, the ad includes a brief warning about the (few) things coffee cannot do as well as a notice as to where it can be found.
It is neither Laxative nor Restringent. Made and Sold in St. Michael's Alley in Cornhill, by Pasqua Rosee, at the Signe of his own Head
WATCH THE FOLLOWING COMMERCIAL:
3. Colonial America
Fireplaces with small openings cause drafts or cold air to rush in at every crevice, and 'tis very uncomfortable as well as dangerous to sit against any such crevice.... Women, particularly, from this cause (as they sit much in the house) get colds in the head, rheums, and defluxions which fall into their jaws and gums, and have destroyed early, many a fine set of teeth in these northern colonies. Great and bright fires do also very much contribute to damaging the eyes, dry and shrivel the skin, bring on early the appearance of old age. A key figure in colonial American advertising was none other than Benjamin Franklin. As publisher of The Philadelphia Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanac, he changed advertising style by including simple illustrations (for example, a woodcut of a sailing ship or a spinning wheel) to accompany the words in ads. He began also to provide more details about benefits and uses than many of the ads that preceded him. He promoted his own famous stove in this way:
A Simple Woodcut Like This Illustrated Some American Ads in the Late 1700s
Ads that appeared in Franklin's newspaper, the Philadelphia Gazette, give a virtual description of life in Pre-Revolutionary America. All of the following appeared on a single page on 1735:
Please note that Franklin's contemporary Benjamin Banneker (free African American) used this same format in his popular almanac).
Franklin's ads are too difficult to read, but here are some of the advertisements:
ODRAN DUPUY, next Door to the Bell in Arch-street, on Monday Feb. 10 opened a FRENCH SCHOOL. Where whoever enclines to learn the French Language, may be taught it on reasonable Terms. His Wife also teaches young Ladies Needle Work.
Antigua Rum, St. Kits Mellasses, Chocolate, Cotton, Ginger and Pepper, and sundry other Sorts of Goods Sold by wholesale or Retail, by William Graham, at the House where Henry Hodge lately dwelt.
A SERVANT Man's Time for 3 Years and Four Months, to be disposed of. He is a likely hearty young Fellow. Enquire of the Printer hereof.
Just imported, another Parcel of SUPER FINE CROWN SOAP. It cleanses Fine Linens, Muslins, Laces Chinces, Cambricks, etc. with Ease and Expedition, which often suffer more from the long and hard Rubbing of the Washer, through the ill Qualities of the soap they use than the wearing.
Following American independence, more newspapers sprang up across the new country. One estimate claims that there were 35 newspapers in 1775 while there were 532 by 1820.7 As newsprint became more readily available, the newspaper flourished, becoming the first mass medium in American society.
4. The Age of the Newspaper
James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald from 1835 to 1867, is one of the most flamboyant characters in the history of American mass media. Born into an already wealthy family, he made another fortune selling newspapers. Bennett's approach was as ingenious as it was insistent. He latched onto the idea of raising the cost of advertisements to lower the cost of newspapers, a practice that continues into the present. He put an end to the seemingly endless repetition of ads from issue to issue that had characterized American newspapers from the colonial period well into the 19th century.
Bennett first limited an ad's run to two weeks, and then later to a single day, giving readers cause to read ads more carefully. He also began printing ads throughout his paper, even on the front page, thus treating ads like news. To ensure readers and thus sales of his newspaper, Bennett did not shy away from the sensational—in either news or ads. He broke with the typical focus of other editors on political news and included stories from police files, courts, sports, theatres, and other events that had mass appeal. It was Bennett who underwrote the cost of sending Stanley to find Livingstone in Tanganyika in 1871, serializing the saga and keeping his readers entertained for months.
Bennett also understood the entertainment value of personal want ads for his readers. Lacking radio and TV and having only a few magazines, a newspaper would have been savored and mused over. Personal ads in particular delighted readers who were yet to be weary from media bombardment and advertising clutter. Ads like these appeared in the pages of the New York Herald:
Dear Charles—Should such a trifle as a handy hat-brush sever true love? Come home to your ruffled LuLu.
Wanted—A situation as son-in-law in a respectable family. Blood and breeding no object, being already supplied; capital essential. No objection to going a short distance into the country.
Although many forms of mass media compete for our attention today, the personals continue to intrigue readers. Here are some that appeared in New York Magazine:
Shrimps In My Cocktail Only Please—Need tall, leggy, lovely who can wear heels with ease and handle herself in the same manner. Travel in the US and abroad, theater, great food and just plain fun in the offing. Economy fares not in my itinerary; good education and a sense of humor a must. I am 6'5", 55, and looking for a relationship with a little solemnity and no strings.
This Man Can Bark—But he's no dog. Well-trained, smart, good-looking, athletic Jewish male, 31, seeks Jewish female, 26-30, with intelligence, wit, spontaneity and good looks. I'm 5'9" on my hind legs, 155 lbs, brown hair, blue eyes. Send papers and photo.
And these ones appeared in a Valentine's Day edition of a college newspaper:
Chip, chip, chipper! Have a Happy Valentine's Day, Giraffe Woman and a blast in Florida. Just don't lose anything I wouldn't (especially panties).—Your "Little Brother."
To my only BOO: Thanks for five wonderfully "warm and gooey" months! I hope this Valentine's Day is the first of many we'll share! You are the most amazing male! YUM!!!
Bennett understood the human interest appeal that such ads could have. By requiring ads to conform to a uniform style and without illustrations, he capitalized on the news value of single insertions. It was not long, however, before such techniques as iteration, unusual layout, and manipulating white space were used by advertisers to get around the restrictions. The mid-1800s was indeed the age of the newspaper but it was also the age of the newspaper advertisement—the most effective and cost efficient method of advertising the world had known.
5. Meanwhile in the Small Towns
While Bennett and other newspapermen were developing the newspaper in large Eastern cities as a mass medium for advertising, direct selling messages remained common in smaller towns all over America. Store clerks continued to deal face-to-face with their customers, discussing the uses and benefits for the products they sold. However, by the mid-1800s itinerant salesmen had also become a part of American commerce. By 1900, there were an estimated 350,000 traveling men doing business in America.9 Some served as the middlemen between manufacturers and wholesalers and local stores all over America. Others sold directly to consumers door-to-door or in impromptu displays set up on street corners and other public venues. From the mid-19th until well into the 20th century, traveling salesmen filled a critical niche in American marketing.
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. 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. 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. 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.
WATCH THE FOLLOWING:
By the beginning of the 20th century, an incipient consumer movement protesting the outrageous and unsupported claims of both the traveling salesmen and mass media advertising was developing. 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.
6. P. T. Barnum and the Age of Excess
It is doubtful that Phineas Taylor Barnum (1810-1891) ever made two famous remarks attributed to him: "There's a sucker born every minute" and "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time." The frequent attribution of these remarks to Barnum, however, reveals a great deal about the public's lasting opinion of him. He was without a doubt one of the greatest showmen the world has known, but in the end he seems to have left more lingering doubts and suspicions rather than respect for his promotional methods.
Barnum's place in advertising history is in the realm of half-truths, exaggerations, and outright trickery. He seems to have had few scruples for doing whatever it took to attract an audience and make money from it. Deception was his game. In his famous museum in New York City, Barnum put up a sign that read, "This Way to the Egress." Visitors to the museum, often fooled by this antiquated word for "exit" and thinking they were headed for another fantastical exhibit, passed through a door and found themselves instead in the street! Barnum had enticed them inside. He had entertained them a bit. And then he needed them out of the way to make room for others.
Barnum used advertising to lure crowds to his museum and traveling exhibits. In his early career, he focused on freaks and oddities that the public would pay to see. One of the most famous of these was known as the Fiji Mermaid (exhibited in 1842)—which his ads and posters claimed to be half human, half fish. In actuality, the so-called mermaid was a hoax, consisting of the head of a monkey attached to the body of a fish.
7. Advertising Agents Come on the Scene
As America recovered from the Civil War (1861-1865), commerce and newspapers once again took their place in the fabric of society. In the 1860s and 1870s, the forerunners of modern advertising agents came on the scene. First offering to physically take ads from the shops of busy tradesmen to the offices of newspaper publishers, ad men provided a service that business found desirable. Two of the earliest agencies were N. W. Ayer in Philadelphia and J. Walter Thompson in New York. These 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. The agents offered to write the copy that would be placed in newspapers. 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.
A List of Magazines from 1889 with Rates for Placing Ads
What are the similarities and differences between salesmanship and advertising? 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.
8. Billboards, Trade Cards, and Other Advertising Strategies
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, advertising agencies came into their own by offering a wide range of services to the clients who hired them to help promote goods and services. One advertising gimmick was the inclusion of trade cards in packages of cigarettes and other forms of tobacco. Consumers were encouraged to collect entire series of glamorous women, movie stars, Indian chiefs, wonders of the world, and so on. Another technique invented by advertising agents was prizes in return for a specified number of proofs of purchase.
This Series of Advertising Trade Cards from Cigarette Packages (late 1800s)
By the end of the 19th century, advertising had proliferated beyond the newspaper and magazine to posters and billboards in public spaces. Trains and streetcars typically carried such notices and the public streets and byways were filled with billboards and other advertising posters.
Billboards Lined the Shores of the Hudson River around the Turn of the 20th Century
All such techniques—and there were a great many of them—were ways in which advertising agents expanded their services beyond writing and placing ads in newspapers and magazines on behalf of their clients.
9. The Birth of the Slogan
Advertisements consisting of a central catchy phrase or slogan became the mode in the 1890s. Kodak advertised its camera with the phrase: "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest" in 1891. Other famous slogans that were used during this period were "Absolutely Pure" for Royal Baking Powder, "Eat H-O" for Hornby's Oatmeal, and "99 and 44/100% Pure" for Ivory Soap.
The use of slogans as the focus of poster and newspaper advertising represented a break with the earlier technique of using long, wordy copy to explain the product and why the consumer should purchase it. Slogans focused instead on a single big idea expressed in the form of a memorable phrase, and ads using them often did not give "reasons why" to consumers. Nonetheless, "Do You Know Uneeda Biscuit?" sold crackers quite well.
Fascination with slogans continues into contemporary advertising. Geico famously encourages potential customers to switch brands of automobile insurance with the slogan, So Easy a Caveman Can Do It. Nike's Just Do It is not only well known but a part of contemporary popular culture. The long-running campaign got milk? is one of the most memorable slogans in recent advertising history. Such phrases are so catchy that they are easily remembered, frequently repeated, and often parodied.
10. The Emergence of Brands
Throughout most of the 19th century, customers took their own containers to stores where they bought generic sugar, rice, coffee, molasses, salt, and other products. The advent of packaged goods—a box of salt, a bag of rice, and a pound of coffee with a brand name on it—changed marketing forever. Rice was no longer just rice, and coffee wasn't just coffee. Proctor & Gamble, perhaps the world's best known maker of package goods, began selling Ivory Soap in 1879. Soon Uneeda Biscuit, Campbell's Soup, Quaker Oats, Royal Baking Powder, and Lipton Tea were on the shelves as well.
What exactly is a brand? Marketers tell us that 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.
Take a look at the evolution of the following brands, noting how they are reflective of race relations in the United States.
1909 Cream of Wheat
1916
1941
contemporary.....What are your thoughts?
Uncle Ben's Rice
He's now the CEO of the company
Uncle Ben
Aunt Jemima
now a professional
And here is Betty Crocker, who has been redesigned to have a Latina look.
And to bring you up-to-date, Aunt Jemima is no longer. Last month, the company changed its product name to Pearl MIlling Company
Her real name was Nancy Green. Her family did not want the company to change the marketing.
11. Television and Commercials
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. It was not long, however, before TV antennas sprung up all over America. The country was fascinated with the new medium, although early television was often little more than "radio with pictures." Talking heads delivered the news with little on-the-scene reporting. Variety and quiz shows as well as many dramatic performances typically took place before live studio audiences. National commercials with high production values advertised widely distributed products while local commercials were generally low-budget operations. Reception was often poor. Even passing cars and household appliances generated static on early TV sets. Despite all this, the magic of TV was entertainment on a scale unknown before.
Step back into the 1950's and watch this series of ads.
collection of early TV commercials 13 min
Sugar Smacks, Alka Seltzer, Bosco, Tootsie Roll Pops, Fluffo Shortening, Swiss Creme Cookies, Old Gold Cigarettes, Ovaltine, Tang and Life Boy Soap
12. Commercializing Cyberspace
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.
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. Broadcasting became narrowcasting, and advertising became more focused as well. Home and Garden channel viewers get advertisements for paint and other building products while Travel Channel viewers see ads for airlines and vacation spots. 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. A repersonalization of messages is occurring — ironically bringing advertising back around to speaking more individually to potential customers.
But what does the future hold for advertising? As the world of corporations and advertising charts its future, the search for new advertising venues goes on. Advertising has been very innovative in the past in finding ways to communicate promotional messages. As technology has evolved, it has revolutionized advertising techniques as well as changing the social landscape. There is no reason to suspect that advertising will not continue to reinvent itself, discover new media, and develop new techniques. Advertising as we know it may be at its end, but the culture of consumption is alive and well.
