ADVERTISING IN BYGONE DAYS

Ancient advertising. Just when advertising began depends on how one wishes to define the term. In this History of Advertising, published in 1875, Henry Sampson says of the beginning of advertising: " There is little doubt that the desire among tradesmen and merchants to make good their wares has had an existence almost as long as the customs of buying and selling, and it is but natural to suppose that advertisements in some shape or form have existed not only time immemorial, but almost for all time. "

Because oral skills developed before reading and writing did, it is only natural that the earliest advertising medium was the spoken word. There is evidence that criers and hawkers were shouting their wares as far back as the days of the early Greeks, Romans, and Phoenicians. This primitive advertising, refined over the centuries, has carried down to the present day. Although hawkers do not often roam the streets with their cries, they have entered the home to make their pleas on radio and television.

Before long, competition and the need for identification necessitated signs. Signs used for identifying shops, with such appropriate illustrations as a goat (for a diary) or a mule driving a mill (for a baker), were unearthed in the ruins of Pompeii. (At the door of a schoolmaster there was a sign depicting a boy receiving a whipping!) There is also evidence of announcements painted on walls during this period. These included notices for theatrical performances, sports and gladiatorial exhibitions, advertisements of houses for rent, and appeals to tourists to visit local taverns. Perhaps the first written advertisement, however, was this three-thousand-year-old one inscribed on papyrus and found by an archaeologist in the ruins of Thebes: " The man-slave, Shem, having run away from his good master, Hapu the Weaver, all good citizens of Thebes are enjoyed to help return him. He is Hittite, 5.2 tall, of ruddy complexion and brown eyes. For news of his whereabouts, half a gold coin is offered. And for his return to the shop of Hapu the Weaver, where the best cloth is woven to your desires, a whole gold coin is offered. "

There is no doubt that advertising flourished in this period, but with the fall of the Roman Empire and the onset of the Dark Ages, advertising temporarily declined in importance to Western civilization.

Early English advertising. Perhaps the oldest relic of advertising among English-speaking people is family names referring to the various specialized crafts. The earliest of these designations was Smith. Names like Miller, Weaver, Wright, Tailor and Carpenter were the earliest means of product identification – the forerunner of the brand name so essential to modern advertising.

Beginning of printed advertisements. One of the most significant events in the development of advertising was the invention of a system of casting movable type by the German, Johann Gutenberg, in 1438. Paper had been invented more than a thousand years earlier by the Chinese and was introduced to Europe by the Turks in the twelfth century. Now all the necessary components were available for mass printing. At the same time, literacy was increasing. William Caxton, an early English printer, made advertising history in 1478 when he printed a handbill now regarded as the first known printed English advertisement. It advertised a book he had printed, the Salisburi Pye, rules for the clergy at Easter. The advertisement read: " If it please ony man spirituel or temporel to bye ony pyes of two and thre comemoracios of Salisburi use enpryntid after the forme of this present letter whiche ben wel and truly correct, late hym come to Westmonester in to the almonestrye at the reed pale and he shal have them good chepe. Supplico stet cedula ". The Latin phrase at the end translates, "Let this notice stand."