A short history of advertising
People have promoted what they sell for as long as there has been something to sell. The tools changed, but the aim stayed the same: put a message in front of the right people. Dates below are approximate and mark when each form became widespread.
Before print
Early advertising was local and personal. Merchants used painted signs, shop marks and town criers who called out goods and news. Many of the oldest surviving examples are signs and notices from ancient cities.
Printing made it possible to repeat one message many times. Posters, handbills and then newspapers carried advertising from the 1600s onward. By the 1800s newspapers and magazines depended on advertisers, and agencies began to appear to buy space on behalf of businesses.
Radio and television
Radio brought sponsored programs and spoken ads in the 1920s. Television added moving pictures, and the first commercials aired in the early 1940s. Broadcast advertising reached huge audiences at once, but it was costly and hard to measure, and small businesses were mostly priced out.
The internet
Online display ads appeared in the mid 1990s. Search advertising arrived around the year 2000 and changed the economics: advertisers could pay only when someone clicked and could show an ad to people at the moment they searched. Social networks added targeting by interest and location from the mid 2000s onward.
What changed for advertisers
| Era | What you could do | What was hard |
|---|---|---|
| Signs and criers | Reach people nearby | Anyone beyond the street |
| Repeat one message widely | Knowing who read it | |
| Radio and TV | Reach mass audiences | Cost, and measuring results |
| Internet | Target, test and measure | Standing out and tracking correctly |
What stays the same
Every medium rewards the same basics: know who you are talking to, say something useful and clear, and make the next step easy. The new tools make it easier to measure whether it worked, which is a good reason to set goals and tracking before you spend.