Background Research

Origins of advertising

One of the first known adverts was from Egyptian times through posters made from Papyrus. Other examples of advertising have been found throughout time such as political campaigns found in the ruins of Pompeii and wall paintings that date back to 4000 BC. There are different types of advertising such as poster advertising, radio advertising and television advertising.

Radio advertising: Some radio stations nowadays are paid/ supported by the revenue of advertising. This gives them money to pay the workers and rights to music, sometimes the rights to music and other cost are paid through other means such as cross promotion though advertising is nearly always present to make money for the radio stations. A service or company usually pays for a ‘spot’ (period of time between music, radio shows and other adverts) to advertise their product/ service. There are certain rules and regulations that radio advertisers have to follow due to the Radio Act of 1927. The first radio broadcast was made in the early 1900’s where radio broadcast were many news programs, at this time the radio wasn’t supported by advertisements. In 1922 advertising on radio started to begin, the first know radio advert was by the WEAF radio station in New York, the advert was from the Queensboro Corporation. Other radio adverts followed with sponsorship adverts where company’s pay for whole radio programs and advertise at the beginning and end of the show.

Television adverts: The first advert ever shown on television was broadcast on the 1^st of July 1941. This was by a watch making company called Bulova on the Channel WNBT which lasted 10 seconds. Like radio adverts, the company pays for time between program’s to advertise their product/ service.  

Sponsorship adverts: Like television adverts but played before and after a TV show. Most sponsorship sequences say the product name/ service and then the programme they are sponsoring.

Vance Packard

Vance Packard was born on the 22^nd of May 1914 and he was a journalist, critic and an author of many books, one of his most famous being Hidden Persuaders. At a young age Packard worked for some daily newspapers and did some reporting for the Boston Daily Record. Hidden Persuaders was a book about how advertising is possibly controlling our thoughts to sell their product/ service through suggest without realisation and other methods. In this book Packard’s ideas are also that some adverts are also used for political gain and to manipulate people’s opinions about something. Packard has been know as a conspiracy theorist for his views on advertising, his books are critically successful but was not giving much respect as many people dismissed his ideas.