AdvertisingIn ancient times, commercial and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of Pompeii. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient media advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print ads were used mainly to promote books,and newspapers which became increasingly affordable thanks to the printing press, and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However,false advertising became a problem, which ushered in regulation of advertising content. As the economy was expanding during the 19th century, the need for advertising grew at the same pace. In the USA, classified ads became popular, filling pages of newspapers with small print messages promoting all kinds of goods. The success of this advertising format led to the growth of mail-order advertising. When commercial radio stations began broadcasting in the early 1920’s, the programs were aired without advertising. Marketing through the Internet opened new frontiers for advertisers. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising revenue, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, the search engine Google revolutionized online advertising by emphasizing contextually relevant, unobtrusive ads intended to help, rather than inundate, users. Advertising is typically paid communication through a non-personal medium in which the sponsor is identified and the message is controlled. Major advertisers are typically corporations, but may also include schools, the military, political candidates, advocacy groups, churches, and other organizations that pay to have their message delivered to an audience. The media through which the message is delivered are varied: they include network and cable TV, radio, magazines, newspapers, the internet, billboards, handmade signs, sky writing, and bumper stickers; the list is almost endless.With the dawn of the Internet have come many new advertising opportunities, and email advertisements (the last often being a form of spam) abound. Each year, greater sums are paid to obtain a commercial spot during the famous tv shows. Companies attempt to make these commercials sufficiently entertaining that members of the public will actually want to watch them. Particularly since the rise of “entertaining” advertising, some people may like an advert enough that they wish to watch it later or show a friend. In general, the advertising community has not yet made this easy, although some have used the Internet to widely distribute their adverts to anyone wishing to see or hear them.
Another significant trend to note for the future of advertising is the growing importance of niche or targeted ads. Also brought about by the Internet, advertisers will have an increasing ability to reach narrow audiences. In the past, the most efficient way to deliver a message was to blanket the largest mass market audience possible. However, usage tracking, customer profiles and the growing popularity of niche content brought about by everything from blogs to social networking sites, provides advertisers with audiences that are smaller but much better defined, leading to ads that are more relevant to viewers and more effective for companies marketing products.The impact of advertising has been a matter of considerable debate and many different claims have been made in different contexts. During debates about the banning of cigarette advertising, a common claim from cigarette manufacturers was that cigarette advertising does not encourage people to smoke who would not otherwise. The (eventually successful) opponents of advertising, on the other hand, claim that advertising does in fact increase consumption.