Soap, Sex, and Cigarettes Notes Chapter 1
Chapter 1 1492-1880 – The Beginning
A. Advertising in the
Old World
1. For thousands of years trades people use public cries and pictorial signs to attract attention b/c few people could read.
2. The impact of the Printing Press
a. Printing provided a way to record facts and important information on documents so that ppl no longer had to rely on their memories; things traveled by word of mouth.
b. The new technology also enabled the development of the first forms of advertising – printed handbills, posters, and trade cards – and the first mass medium – newspapers.
c. With printed advertising tradesppl and merchants could now reach thousands of potential customers far beyond their immediate neighborhoods.
3. From news-letters to newspapers
a. The first newspapers in the world appeared during the 16th century; professional writers penned handwritten manuscripts, or “newsletters,” for sale to noblemen or other exalted personages requiring news of the day.
B. Selling the
New World
1. Throughout the 17th and 18th century, enterprising Englishmen printed a variety of books, brochures, and posters to promote American to their countrymen.
a. they lured potential colonists to the
New World with promises of the good life: gold and silver, fountains of youth, abundant fish and game, productive land.
C. From Colony to Nation
1. once in the new world, the colonists struggled to survive in an environment that, while rich in natural resources, hardly lived up to its glossy billing.
2. Colonial Advertising
a. Colonists simply had little need to advertise their goods and services for sale over a wide area; printing equipment and supplies were scarce and expensive in the
New World.
3. The effect of paper shortages
a. the demand for news about the American revolution enlarged newspaper circulation, which made the chronic paper shortage even more acute.
b. Since ppl made paper from rags and despite editorial pleas for ppl to save their rags to make newsprint, the paper shortage often limited many major city newspapers to a mere 300-400 copied per day; others were forced to suspend publishing; to save space they crammed the pg, restricted advertising.
D. The Impact of the Industrial revolution
1. For the first time it cost less to buy a product than to make it and customer demand was increasing.
2. Advertising provided American manufacturers with a way to stimulate demand for their output, and retailing provided new outlets for the ever increasing flow of goods.
3. Mass Production Spurs Economic growth
a. by 1850 the economy was booming; but the swelling flood of immigrants did not begin to fill the need for workers; labor shortage drew women and children into factories.
E. The Civil War Fuels a consumer economy
1. the fed govt launched the 1st national advertising campaign when it enlisted an advertising agents to help sell war bonds and promoted the issue in more than 5 thousand publications; posters also recruited army volunteers.
2. Demand for news spurred innovations in publishing; new methods of illustration, improved printing techniques and advances in papermaking technology.
F. Urbanization changes the face of retailing
1. General stores sprang up as communities grew and the demand for goods increased.
2. Increasing numbers of city dwellers created a constant demand for fresh food and other necessities that they no longer made or grew themselves.
G. General Merchandisers pass on economies of scale
1. F.W. Woolworth’s five and dime went up across the country.
2. in rural American mounting dissatisfaction with high prices and limited choices, coupled with the introduction of free delivery service, eventually led to the idea of shopping by mail.
H. The Communications revolution
1. the invention of photography in 1839 and the ability to print detailed illustrations gave advertisers a new way of showcasing their products.
I. Go West, Young Man
1. The rails made is possible to more raw material from coast to coast swiftly and cheaply, thereby reducing manufacturing costs; the savings in turn enabled manufacturers to deliver lower-priced goods to distinct markets; ppl could travel more quickly and easily, too.
J. Extra, Extra, read all about it!
1. At the same time, the country’s burgeoning population, booming economy, and western expansion created a demand for news about business, travel, entertainment, and the availability of goods and services.
2. this led many newspapers publishers to consider advertisements as a vital source of revenue.
K. Advertising Gets Creative
1. Creative display advertising appeared in the form of posters, handbills, trade cards pamphlets, and outdoor signs.
2. it was the advertising industry’s commercial application, more than anything else that pushed printers to use chromolithography to print striking designs, bright colors and innovative forms.
L. The Modern Magazine Debuts
1. These publishers depended on their subscribers who, being refined or aspiring to be so, regarded publicity as vulgar and dismissed most product advertising as a sham. And for the most part it was.
2. A few quality monthly magazines enjoyed moderate success without advertising.
3. Patent medicine manufacturers looked greedily on the magazines’ national audience, but the better publications turned up their noses at the advertising revenue.
4. In the following decades magazines enabled manufacturers to sell their products nationwide; other popular periodicals also started as advertising vehicles to subsidize subscription revenues.
II. The Advertising Agent: A New Occupation
A. With improved methods of transportation, manufacturers distribute their goods over wider areas and thus required sales promotions that reached beyond their local region.
- Advertisers often found that arrangements to print their announcements involved many details and time-consuming tasks so newspapers began paying agents to sell space to advertisers and thereby gave birth to the advertising agency.
- Advertising expanded when agencies started directing the artistic side of print advertising, specifying type styles and creating artwork for ads.
III. Puffery and Patent Medicines
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A. Between the end of the Civil War and the beginning of the twentieth century, advertisements for dubious health remedies, get rich-quick schemes, and other outrageous advertising fakes filled newspapers and magazines.
1. Patent medicine manufacturers pioneered new techniques for advertising brand-name, packaged goods.
2. Right before the Civil War, patent medicine advertisements accounted for more than half the advertising lineage in many papers, and annual sales totaled about $3.5 million; the remedies became popular after the Civil War; sales soared to $75 million annually by the turn of the century and accounted for one-third of American publishers’ revenues.
a. During the civil war army doctors routinely treated wounded soldiers with doses of highly addictive compounds; ie: roots, herbs, cocaine, opium, morphine; inadequate diets, high rates of disease, and hordes of new settlers who pushed westward into doctorless territories also fueled the demand for these medicines.
B. By the dawn of the 20th century, advertising had become a social and economic fixture in the
U.S., despite its negative reputation.
