History of Advertising in the Middle Ages

In my previous blog, I gave a brief overview of the very earliest advertisements known to date, up to the beginning of the middle ages. In this blog, I will continue to discuss the timeline in which advertising came to be what it is today.

During the middle ages, advertising consisted mainly of tacked up messages on the outsides of shops which typically consisted of drawings and copy, as few people could read. This primarily stayed the same until the first newspaper popped up in England in 1622. The first ever advertisement in a newspaper was an ad for the return of a stolen horse. As newspapers gained popularity, more and more people were learning to read, which was accompanied by more copy in advertisements, this made the local markets more competitive than ever before.

In 1630, a Paris doctor had a million-dollar idea(literally). Unbeknownst to him, he thought of – and opened the first ad agency in the history of the world. His simple idea of charging three “sous”(French coins) for him to post an ad was widely accepted by his fellow vendors, and by the mid-1600s many such offices were popping up all over Europe. During the plague, newspapers carried ads for medicines and cures, and we saw the idea of the “brand” come in to existence.

By 1666, the London Gazette announced that it was going to be printing ads in their newspapers. By 1682, there were shopping guide newspapers which consisted of solely ads. And by the 1700s, England was described to be covered with posters and pasted-up notices. London became the mecca for advertisements (and still is) with large advertisements and signs everywhere. These signs became so numerous that Charles II announced that no signs should be hung in the streets as It, “shuts out the air and the light of the heavens.” Clearly, he had different views than the people, and his proclamation was mostly ignored.

Next week I will continue to discuss the timeline of advertising and how it spread out of Europe into the rest of the world.

History Of Advertising

1. For my first blog, I thought it would be most appropriate to give a brief history of how early advertising began in the first three areas of the world that it was discovered.

   
   

   Advertising has been around for as long as people have been selling things. If we take a look at the early advertising methods from pre-modern history, the Egyptians created the very first known advertisement using papyrus leaves. These were made by street vendors to advertise sales messages and prices of food and goods, and hung up in the walls of their shops.

   
   

   In ancient China, the earliest advertising was by street vendors as well, who used bamboo flutes to attract consumers to their food stands. China was also the home of the first printed advertising medium, (which was made for the Liu family’s needle shop) dating back to the Song dynasty which took place from 960-1279. The technique they used to make these ancient advertisements was a copper plate that was used to print posters on square sheet paper. This invention was very important as it gave them the ability to make more advertisements, in a fraction of the time as before.

   
   

   
   

   In Europe during the Middle Ages, as towns and cities began to grow, the general population was unable to read. So, instead of signs that read words, they would use an image to represent the product. Another early advertising tactic in the Middle Ages was for shop owners to hire people as “street callers” or “town criers” to announce the whereabouts of the shop.