Advertising
in its primary sense, a notification In some form it has existed from the earliest times, wher- ADVERTISING ever men were gathered into communities and it became necessary for whatever reason to impart information. In its primitive form it was verbal and carried on by messengers. The town crier retailing the news of his small community to his fellows in the market place was an advertiser. Later on, when writing became known, the written work began to take the place of the word of mouth.
Advertisements have been found in the clay libraries of Chaldea and in the papyri of Egypt. It was early adapted to the needs of commerce, although when illiteracy was the rule, this often took the form of pictures or symbols. Storekeepers, for instance, who sold milk had the picture of a cow displayed so as to tell illiterate servants where they could find what they wanted. Tavern signs displayed in crude pictorial form the special claims or merits of the hostelry.
With the invention of printing, an immense impetus was given to advertising. The gazettes and other printed sheets of the England of some centuries ago devoted an increasing amount of their limited space to notification of runaway apprentices or wives, or extolled the merits of some particular coffee or play house. Nostrums of all kinds were widely advertised and formed a target for the wit and satire of Addison. To such an extent had this developed in the time of Dr. Samuel Johnson, that in the innocence of his heart he asserted that the art of advertising had reached perfection. In the sense of the word in which advertising is used to-day, it is a comparatively modern development.
In the United States its really important beginnings were contemporaneous with the growth of newspapers, the extension and perfecting of the postal service, the building of railroads, and the invention of the telegraph. It began to be seen that merchandise could be sold at a profit beyond the limits of the community in which the business or manufacturing plant was located. At first, however, the field was so largely engrossed by the sellers of patent medicines, nostrums, and shady schemes, designed to ensnare the gullible, that there was a tinge of disrepute connected with it, and respectable merchants were diffident about being found in such company. Gradually a saner view manifested itself, and efforts which became increasingly successful were made to drive out the quacks and adventurers and leave the field to reputable concerns.
Flamboyant, exaggerated and untruthful statements in some cases wrought their own cure by their very excesses.
ADVERTISING The process of elimination of this class of advertising was accelerated by the co-operation of the postal authorities and the publishers of reputable papers and magazines. To-day the fraudulent or illegitimate advertisement is the exception, where formerly it was the rule. Advertising matter is carefully scanned by the leading periodicals, and if dubious is declined. Some papers even go so far as to refund at their own cost any loss suffered by reliance on an advertisement inserted in their columns. the chief advertising media, they by no While newspapers and periodicals are means engross the field. Billboards and dia, electrically lighted signs acquaint the public by day and night with the merit of a given article and impress upon the mind the name or trade-mark of the manufacturer. Street-car advertising is carried on to a vast extent, and when it is remembered that 5,000,000,000 cash fares are paid annually in the United States the importance of this medium is made manifest. Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent every year in mail order advertising ing, where through the medium of a letter the advertisement goes direct from the letter , circular, or catalogue, merchant to his potential customer. The work is furthered by large and wellequipped advertising agencies, who act as skilled advisers to the business man who seeks a market for his goods, and enable him to get the largest return at the least expenditure. been a subject of incessant study, and it The psychology of advertising has ments are essential to every effective adhas been accepted that at least four elevertisement. It must (1) attract attention. slogans and attractive headlines. It
Hence the value of clever must (2) arouse interest. This is done by a clear, simple, not too long statement of the merits of the article in question.
It must (3) create desire. This is done by showing how the acquisition of this article will benefit the reader personally.
And it must (4) inspire decision on the part of the person addressed to make that article his own. variations, but an advertisement that article his own. There are infinite lacks any one of these four elements is practically worthless.
A on velopment in the United States where it Advertising has reached its highest dehas become a recognized element of nearly every large business. So-called " national" advertising is carried through magazines and papers of wide circulation and these are able through this circulation to demand for their space extremely large sums, ranging from $1,- 000 to $5,000 per page for one insertion.
ADVERTISING ÆGEAN ISLANDS voted to general literature. There cro many journals devoted to the technique of advertising and several of these have a very wide general circulation.
Although advertising has reached such cases the space given to the advertising an enormous development in the United pages greatly exceeded those devoted States, it is still generally considered to text matter, even in magazines do to be in an empirical condition. The methods and forms to be used in advertising campaigns to a great extent are left in the hands of advertising experts to determine the mediums to be used. By keeping a strict account, by means of "keys," of the number of inquiries received through each medium, it is possible to a large extent to arrive at a knowledge of their respective values as advertising mediums. In spite of this, however, there still remains a large element of chance. Attempts to reduce this element have been made on an elaborate scale by Professor Waller Dill Scott and others, who have analyzed advertising over a number of years in an elaborate manner, and have been able to arrive at an estimate of averages which have been of great value.
During the World War all the leading governments involved entered upon advertising on a large sc ge scale, first to secure enlistments in their armies and afterward to raise the large sums necessary for carrying on the war and for the relief work which accompanied it.
While all agencies of advertising were employed in this work, the most notable and picturesque method was the employment of posters, many of them executed with great care by the most eminent artists in the various countries. Many of these were of great beauty and artistic merit.
The development of advertising has been accompanied by abuses. These usually take the the form of disfiguring public places and landscapes with advertising signs, especially along the lines of railways. Societies have been organized to prevent this, with excellent results. Several railways have undertaken to rid the landscapes through which their lines pass of objectionable signs. Similar efforts have been made to limit the erection of billboards in cities to places where their presence would be most inoffensive.
Accompanying the conditions of the business world which followed the World War, advertising took on a great impetus in 1919 and 1920. This resulted not only from a desire on the part of business men to increase their revenue, but also from the fact that many firms found it more profitable to invest large sums of money in advertising than to pay them out in the form of taxation on their surplus profits. As a result of this, many magazines of large circu-