The first sources of advertising are even back to antiquity. Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, and Roman cultures surprise with high rates of advertising information’s development. It was expressed in written, pictorial, and verbal form. Even at that time, the ancient entrepreneurs such as slave traders wanted to lure a potential consumer, grabbing his attention and making a profitable deal.
The first advertising information of the ancient world was the Egyptian papyrus, informing about the slave’s sale. Also, some Egyptologists believe that advertising messages could be written on stones. One such stone was found in the city of Memphis, which was the first capital of ancient Egypt.
Also, the advertising text can be found on walls and plates, scratched or painted. In Greece and Rome BC, all advertising messages were written on special plaques, later, and parchment. On the market square, various ads were often read with a large crowd of people.
In 1472, the first printed ad took place in England. On the door of one London church, an advertisement for the sale of prayer books was posted.
Most researchers believe that the founder of print advertising in Europe was the French doctor Theophraste Renaudot. In 1630, he opened an information office in Paris. It printed advertisements in the French newspaper La Gazette. The first ad was a message about a reward for finding 12 stolen horses.
Then there were advertisements from merchants selling wholesale bread, flour, waffles, tea, coffee, and so on.
The first advertisement simply informed people about the availability of any product for sale. But gradually such ad stopped working, and advertisers began to use various tricks actively to attract buyers' attention to their products. These could be fables, proverbs, and sayings, small story stories skillfully offering the goods. In 1704, a newspaper "Boston News-Letter" appeared in the American colonies. This newspaper was completely focused on advertising.
In the middle of the 18th century, an industrial revolution began in England and the early 19th century in North America. Over time, the print advertising began to change due to the photos’ emergence in 1839. Since then the advertising information began to go with pictures and images of a product.
Over time, specialized agencies and firms began to engage in advertising. Separate advertising departments of trade campaigns, organizations, and publishing houses were created. Advertising agencies of the XIX century started their work with the purchase of land and their further resale with huge revenue.
Today in the center of the New York City there are several of the largest American advertising agencies, employing more than thirty thousand people! The largest advertising agency in the world is Dentsu located in Japan.
What is advertising in Africa?
The population of Africa is growing at an incredible rate. On the level of urbanization, Africa lags far behind other regions, but Wikipedia claims that 30% of Africans live in cities. It means that the urban population - more than 400 million people - actively consumes many goods and services of both local companies and global concerns.
Observing this tendency, the world's largest advertising networks hastened to open their offices in African cities considering the region as promising. There is a legend that long time ago a major food company decided to supply its products to the countries of Africa. On jars with baby food, it was the image of a chubby smiling baby. But sales of food for babies did not grow. It turned out that the majority of the population was illiterate and didn’t know how to read.
To explain to ordinary people what was inside the package the ingredients were portrayed on it. For example, if the milk was inside, they drew milk. If the vegetables were inside, they pictured vegetables on the packaging. And Africans did not dare to buy cans for their children, where the child was drawn.
Perhaps this story happened many years ago. But today, as you can see, Africa changes and develops every day. Modern Africans are able not only to grow coffee but also to make good advertising. And maybe one day, like the countries of Southeast Asia, Africa will become a "new economic tiger" with billions of investments and start-ups.
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Source: Legit.ng
