Marketing communication: principles and practice

A D V E R T I S I N G A S C O M M U N I C A T I N G
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viewing from timed schedules to a content-driven basis. This will have a
dramatic effect on channels that are funded by advertising (Doward, 2000),
leading to linear mass-market advertising schedules. Perhaps soon we will
watch only those advertisements that are relevant to our lifestyles.
See also Box 14.3, which deals with advertorials.
ORIGINS OF ADVERTISING
In 1477 an advertisement appeared in an English newsletter (Fang, 1997).
As early as 1630 an advertising ‘agency’ model was operating in France as 
a public service with the role of providing social assistance to people. As a
clearing house, those with needs were brought together in a ‘harmonious
regime’. This activity was termed ‘publicity’, and formed the foundation of
today’s ‘public relations’ (Mattelart, 1996). In 1655, the word ‘advertising’
was introduced (Fang, 1997). By 1785 
The Times
was founded, combining
news and opinions with commercial presentations. This differed funda-
mentally from the earlier model, being based on a competitive model with
commercial intentions and exchanges predominating. Thus, the ‘conflictual
advertising’ that is so familiar today was born. A year earlier, the 
Pennsylvania
Packet and Advertiser
was founded in North America. Of the sixteen columns
printed, ten were advertisements!
By the 1830s, the press had become a high-circulation commercial
enterprise in England, France, and North America. For example, by 1836
the French newspapers 
La Presse
and 
Le Siècle
relied systematically on
advertising for their commercial prosperity. In 1841 the first commercial
US advertising agency was established (Fang, 1997). As we saw in chapter
one, by the end of the nineteenth century, marketing needs were strongly
influencing developments in tools for communication. What was necessary
was a means of ‘welding together’ large-scale repetitive production with mass
consumption, work with entertainment (Mattelart, 1996). Formalized
advertising, practised as the means of persuasion to the advantage of the
advertiser, came to be the answer. In 1897 the General Electric company