Advertising is a product of the commodity economy. Since the production and exchange of commodities, advertising has also appeared. The earliest advertising in the world was carried out through sound, called oral advertising, also known as hawking advertising. This is the most primitive and simplest form of advertising. As early as ancient Greece in the early days of slave society, people sold slaves and livestock through hawking, publicly publicized and shouted rhythmic advertisements. The streets of ancient Rome were filled with the cries of vendors. Carthage, a trading area in the vast Mediterranean region with highly developed commerce in ancient times, was once famous for the numerous cries throughout the city.
Trademark size is also one of the ancient forms of advertising. The store's name originated from the ancient city of Pompeii. In the ancient Roman Empire, people used font sizes to advertise gladiatorial and circus performances. Trademarks and sizes are all symbolic. For example, a dairy factory in ancient Rome was marked with a goat; a mule pulling a millstone represented a bakery; and a child being whipped with a whip was the mark adopted by a school. In medieval England, an arm wielding a hammer represented a goldsmith's workshop; three doves and a scepter represented a spinning mill. The mark of London's first Indian cigar factory was carved from a ship's mast by a shipbuilding carpenter.
Our country is one of the first countries in the world to have advertising. As early as the Western Zhou Dynasty, audio advertising appeared. The "Book of Songs" chapter "Zhou Song·You Gu" already contains the poem "Xiao Guan Beiju". According to Zheng Xuan's note in the Han Dynasty: "Xiao is a small bamboo pipe that is played by those who sell it today." Kong Yingda of the Tang Dynasty also said Shu explains: "The people who were selling sweets at that time played the flute to express themselves." It can be seen that in the Western Zhou Dynasty, the vendors selling sweets already knew how to attract business by blowing the flute.
In ancient my country, what appeared after audio advertising was "hanging banner" advertising. "Han Feizi·Wai Chu Shuo" said, "There were wine drinkers in the Song Dynasty who were very gentle in promotion, very cautious when meeting guests, thought the wine was very beautiful, and hung their flags very high." This is the earliest record of restaurants and wine flags in our country. The hotel was opened in a fixed place. In order to attract customers, it would throw out "a wine flag," which was a form of advertising to attract customers. This form was used continuously later, such as Zhang Ji's "High wine flag hanging at the mouth of the river" in the Tang Dynasty, and Du Mu's Poems such as "Shui Lin Shan Guo Wine Whirlwind" are also described in "Water Margin": "Wu Song walked on the road for a few days... and saw a hotel in front of him, holding a flag in front of the door with five words written on it. The writing: 'Three bowls are not worth the post'. "There are three feet of cloth in front of the hotel door, looking for customers" in "Yuan Song·Back Court Flower", which not only explains the size of the wine flag, but also explains the function of the wine flag. In addition to wine flags, there are also various types of wine flags in other industries. The iconic form of advertising. According to "Fei Changfang", "There is an old man selling medicine in the city who hangs a pot on his head". He uses gourds as a symbolic sign of the medicine shop and hangs it on the street or in front of the medicine shop. "Flag" and "Hanging Pot" give people a very eye-catching visual effect. In modern terms, they are "signboard advertisements".
◇The invention of printing ushered in a new era of advertising
my country Bi Sheng was the first to invent movable type printing. The earliest industrial and commercial printing was the advertising copper plate of Liujia Needle Shop in Jinan during the Northern Song Dynasty (AD 960-1127). It is now in the Shanghai Museum. This is the earliest printed advertising object found in the world. After the art was spread from China to the West, Western advertising entered a new stage.
In 1473, William Kankes, the first British publisher, printed many printed advertisements promoting religious content and posted them in London. On the street, this is the earliest printed advertisement in the West, three to four hundred years later than the printed advertisement of Liujia Needle Shop in the Northern Song Dynasty of China.
The first one was founded by Nicholas Brown and Thomas Kircher in England in 1622. The English newspaper "Weekly News" was published in London during this year, and in 1650 there was an advertisement for a certain 12 horses in the column "Proceedings of Parliament". Reward notices for stolen horses. Later, in 1710, Addison and Steele published advertisements in the Observer for the promotion of tea, coffee, chocolate, books, real estate, patent medicine auction items, and transfer items.
Before the independence of the United States, the first newspaper "Boston News Letter" founded on April 24, 1704, published an advertisement recommending newspapers as a promotional medium to advertisers. . Benjamin Franklin, considered the father of the American advertising industry, founded the Daily Pennsylvanian in 1729 and placed the advertising column in front of the editorial on the first page of the first issue.
The first advertisement was for soap. Among newspapers in colonial America, the Daily Pennsylvanian ranked first in terms of circulation and advertising. In this newspaper we can often see advertisements promoting ships, feather products, books, tea, and other products. Franklin was an advertising writer, advertising manager and salesman. One of the most famous advertising works he chose to write was a sales advertisement for the Pennsylvania Hearth Factory. This kind of fireplace was later named "Franklin stove".
The advertisement reads:
A fireplace with small vents allows cold air to penetrate into the room from each vent, so it is very uncomfortable to sit in front of these vents. Comfortable and dangerous - especially women, because they sit quietly at home for a long time, often suffer from wind and cold in the head, runny nose, and crooked mouth and eyes due to the above reasons, which may eventually extend to the mandible and gums. This is one of the reasons why many people in the North suffer premature damage to their good teeth.
As can be seen from the above advertisements: Franklin, like the clever contemporary advertising writers, emphasizes the benefits of using the product rather than simply introducing the product.
By 1830, there were 1,200 newspapers in the United States, 65 of which were daily newspapers. Most or all of the first page of many newspapers is filled with advertisements. The period from 1830 to 1850 was the era of penny newspapers. Because each copy sold for one penny, the price was low, sales increased, and the effectiveness of advertising also increased accordingly. While newspaper advertising became popular, magazine advertising also continued to increase, and advertising agencies and advertising companies appeared.
◇The Development of the Modern Advertising Industry
With the emergence of large-scale capitalist production, the high development of commodity production, the huge scale of exchange, the market expansion to the world, and extremely fierce market competition, Coupled with the prosperity of science and technology, advertising can use various advanced media and technologies to convey economic information and promote sales, and has become an important marketing tool for industrial and commercial enterprises in developed countries. However, fraud and deceiving consumers continue to appear in advertising. Therefore, various countries have formulated relevant laws and established relevant organizations to supervise. The International Advertising Association, founded in 1938, is an international organization with 2,640 individual members and a large number of corporate members from more than 70 countries and regions.
After World War II, competition further intensified and science and technology advanced by leaps and bounds, which promoted the rapid development of the advertising industry. Major improvements in televisions, video recorders, glass screen projection televisions, printing inks, paper, copying technology and color printing, a large increase in various magazines and newspapers, electronic advertising, neon advertising, street sign advertising, street car advertising, A large number of point-of-sale advertisements, postal advertisements and advertising books and periodicals have emerged, bringing unprecedented development to the modern advertising industry. Americans say: "If you pick up a newspaper or magazine, turn on the TV, open the mail, or even walk on the road or answer a phone call, you will be bombarded by advertising fatigue." From 1946 to 1959 alone, the U.S. advertising industry tripled. During this period, the growth rate of the advertising business exceeded the growth rate of the entire national income, and the funds for purchasing advertising tools increased significantly. It developed even faster after the 1970s. According to statistics, the United States spent as much as 37 billion US dollars on advertising in 1977, and about three cents of every dollar of sales was spent on advertising. Currently, there are more than 3,800 registered advertising companies in the United States, with 200,000 employees, accounting for one thousandth of the country's population, and a total investment of US$15.3 billion, ranking first in the world's advertising industry.