In ancient times, the only available form of advertising was word of mouth. Merchants would hawk their wares at the city gates to tell all who passed through the virtues of their products.

As soon as written forms of communication were devised, symbolic ads started to appear as engravings on walls and inside tombs.

In 618, the first ink printing was done in China using carved wooden blocks, and techniques advanced over the next 100 years to produce early forms of flyers that were posted or distributed by hand.

The first English language print advertisement appeared in 1648 in the Imperial Intelligencer.

In 1930, Charles Jenkins, inventor of a mechanical television system called radiovision, broadcast the first TV commercial.

Use of the internet as an advertising medium is a very recent development. The term “internet” wasn’t even defined until 1995.

Ten years later in 2005, Canadians alone spent $7.9 billion just in online purchases and not accounting for the revenue generated in storefront sales as a result of a web presence.

Our advice for 2007? Integrated Advertising – strategically coordinating your internet promotions with other forms of marketing. Read about iias’s new Integrated Advertising Consultant in this issue!

References:

1. http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/Television_Time_3.htm
2. http://www.cbc.ca/money/story/2006/11/01/net-spending.html
3. http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/printing_3.htm
4. http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#Transition
5. http://etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/ScoPsyc.html

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