1. History of Advertising: Important Milestones
Advertising began earlier than you would think. Back in 2000 BC, the Egyptians carved notices on
steels These notices were not necessarily to sell something but to announce or give warnings. This
effectively became the birth of advertising.
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Continue reading below to understand how advertising progressed.
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750 BC - Greek women developed the practice of painting their nails to "attract" men.
1472 - The Catholic Church created a print ad to sell their prayer book
1609 - Flyers and posters were created to encourage people to migrate to the U.S.
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2. 1657 - A flyer was created by a London company to promote coffee.
1661 - Contrary to belief, Coke is not the first product to create visual branding. It was Dentifice
Tooth Gel. They created a logo that is consistent with their packaging.
1735 - Philadelphia Gazette talked about the life in America before revolution. The newspaper was
owned by Benjamin Franklin and the advertisement was meant to attract people to go to America.
Once in the America, these people were sold as slaves
1776 - The U.S. government created posters and flyers to encourage men to enlist in the army and
fight the American Revolution
1835
James Gordon Bennett revolutionized advertising and newspapers by using advertising to lower the
cost of newspapers. He was the publisher of New York Herald. Instead of repeating ads over and
over, he printed ads for only two weeks and then later on to one day which encouraged more people
to read ads more. He also financed the famous journey of Stanley to find Livingston through a series
in the paper which gripped readers.
He was also the one who introduced personal ads on newspapers. As the economy was recovering,
3. automobiles were starting to be mass produced and fuel was a big part of it. Fuel companies started
putting up big versions of their flyers and posters which is now known as billboards.
New York Herald Sample Ad
1842 - another pivotal figure became famous, Phineas Taylor Barnum. He came out with and ad
promoting his exhibit of a mermaid which was a hoax. He just attached the head of a monkey to the
body of a fish but many people came to see his exhibit. He gradually escalated to more ridiculous
claims like claiming he has put together the a circus that is "The Greatest Show on Earth."
1864 - William James Carlton founded a company that offered ad spaces to different magazines. J.
Walter Thompson was an administrative assistant. However, Thompson realized that money is on
sales so he asked that he be transferred to sales.
1873 - The first media buy happened in the novel Around the World in 80 Days. The novel
specifically mentioned certain shipping and transportation companies.
1877 - Thompson, he was able to save enough money to buy the company from Carlton. He renamed
it J. Walter Thompson Company. In less than a year, he hired copywriters and artists and offered
copywriting and image services to companies.
4. 1882 - Media placement and Media Buying officially became an industry when New York Time
Squared hosted the first electric sign.
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1891 - KodaK came up with a slogan "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest" which set the trend of
using a slogan for products.
1899 - Thompson opened a branch in London
1900 - Thompson introduced trademark in the market, setting the foundation for what is now known
as branding.
1982 - Sears sent out personal postcards to its regular customers. More than 20% of these
customers went to order more items from them. This is the birth of Direct Marketing.
1905
The University of Pennsylvania offered course in "The Marketing of Products" Fatty Arbuckle, in
silent movie, showed Murad cigarettes. This is also the time when consumers were slowly getting
irritated with lies and unsupported claims of advertising materials. This year, Collier's magazine
came out with a series of articles exposing the unfair practice of companies and the unpleasant
effects to consumers. This is series is titled "The Great American Fraud". 1908 - Harvard Business
School opens.
1911 - Woodbury used "sex sells" in their product tagline.
1917 - The American Association of Advertising Agencies was born.
1920 - KDKA launched, the first radio station. It was owned by Frank Conrad.
1932 - David Ogilvy proved the power of direct advertising when he was given $500 as a budget for
5. a hotel opening. Ogilvy got the phone directory and called everyone he could to invite them in the
opening. The hotel had a full house on the first day.
1938 - The Wheeler-Lea Act of 1938 is established to curb false advertising, proclaiming that "unfair
or deceptive acts or practices in commerce are hereby declared unlawful."
1941 - TV Commercial was born. Bulova watch aired a 20-second TV ad before a baseball game.
They bought it for $9. Hey, it was 1941.
World's First Ever TV Ad 1949 - Bill Bernbach, Ned Doyle and Mac Dane put up DDB. While all other
advertising efforts were geared towards sales, Bernbach steared the wheel by concentrating on the
creative aspect. He gave birth to some of the most effective creative taglines in the history of
advertising like Avis' We Try Harder and Volkswagen's Think Small. Many companies and brands
followed which inspired other advertising agencies to build better creative departments.
1950
Gov. Dewey of New York came up with a TV ad for his campaign. Companies who own soap products
started coming up with contests to entice more people to choose their product by getting a chance to
win more products. 1955 - Advertising became a science when companies started hiring
psychologists to determine how to get customers to buy their products
1957 - An iconic advertising symbol is born, Mr. Clean.
1963 - David Ogilvy famously said "Don't say anything you wouldn't tell your family. You wouldn't lie
to your wife. Don't lie to mine." This ushered in the culture of modern advertising.
1970 - Real estate companies started buying longer time slots which effectively became infomercials.
1980 - Calvin Klein got Brooke Shields, who was then 15 years old, to endorse their product with a
provocative copy saying "Want to know what gets between me and my Calvins? Nothing."
1981 - MTV ushered in music advertising. The network were promoting musicians and performers
instead of products.
1984 - The now famous "radical" Apple ad was aired at the Super Bowl. At the time it was the
highest priced advertising spot ever.
1994
Online advertising began when HotWired came out with ads for Volvo, Sprint and others. GoTo.com
also launched Pay-per-click advertising GoTo.com is the mother company of Yahoo Advertising. 1997
- A company from Finland offered sponsored text-based news headlines to mobile phones
2002 - Pepsi created a TV ad featuring Britney, production cost was $7.53 Million. It is the most
expensive ad to date.
2007 - Facebook introduced behaviour-based advertising by collecting data of its users to determine
what kind of ads would be more relevant to a user.
2008 - In-text advertising was introduced.
2010 - Old Spice made history by using YouTube to relaunch its line.
