Making sense of evidence
A Brief History of Advertising
This essay is adopted from an earlier work by Daniel Pope, The University of Oregon (Emeritus)
In United States history, advertising has responded to changing business demands, media technologies, and cultural contexts.
Advertisements in colonial America were frequently straightforward announcements of goods or services on hand. These announcements ranged from available local produce and imported British manufactured goods, to more disturbingly, bounties on runaway slaves. Infrequently, persuasive appeals could also accompany these descriptions. For instance, Benjamin Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette reached out to readers with new devices like headlines, illustrations, and advertising placed next to editorial material.
Despite the ongoing “market revolution,” early and mid nineteenth century advertisements remained mostly unchanged and relatively similar in design. Profound improvements in industrial production methods and the evolving business environment of the 1880s, however, initiated the development of large-scale modern advertising campaigns. Department stores in rapidly-growing cities such as Macy’s in New York and Wannamakers in Philadelphia, for instance, pioneered new advertising styles. And in rural markets, the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward mail-order catalogues offered everything from buttons and socks to blueprints and materials for building homes.
By the early twentieth century, advertisements had become ubiquitous components of American life. The rise of mass circulation magazines, radio broadcasting, and motion pictures provided new media for burgeoning advertising agencies to reach even larger audiences. In fact, total advertising volume in the United States grew from about $200 million in 1880 to nearly $3 billion in 1920. Despite anxieties about the ethical and financial implications of increased materialism, consumer spending on goods and services such as automobiles, radios, household appliances, and leisure activities increased consistently and dramatically throughout the century, aided by increasingly more creative (and at times deceptive) ad campaigns.
Advertising methods shifted once again at the start of the twenty first century. Using complicated software algorithms, advertisers were suddenly able to target an individual’s personal preferences based on their online habits. With these digital ad campaigns came ethical concerns similar to those of the early twentieth century. Nevertheless, successfully reaching a coveted audience remains extremely lucrative, and advertisers will continue to develop new strategies to get their messages across.