[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 11TH DECEMBER 2008 BY RED C MAGAZINE]

Marketing has been around a lot longer than you may think. In fact, commercial messages, lost-and-found advertisements and even political campaigns can be traced back to ancient civilisations around the world; from Greece, Rome and Pompeii to Egypt and Arabia. And things haven’t changed all that much…

Pre-20th Century marketing
Following these old-time pioneers, the ensuing millennia saw the continuation of small-scale marketing communication across the world, mostly effected by street callers who were hired by stallholders to promote their wares. In seventeenth-century England, weekly newspapers began to print classified ads and descriptive pieces on the latest books and medicines available on the market, including their respective costs. The French newspaper La Presse pioneered the concept of paid advertising in 1836, allowing it to lower its cost for consumers while upping its profits; an idea soon copied by newspapers the world over. But it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century, when better technology allowed the printing of colour and illustrations, that mass-marketing really started to take shape. Continue reading →