AD'VERTIS'ING ( hat. adrertere, to turn [the mind] to, to notice). The method by which the producer of commodities disseminates infor mation regarding them. For the producer it has the value of an automatic process, since it makes it possible to reach thousands of people through printed words, where formerly the seller was limited to his vocal organs. For the con sumer it has the value of a system of education, since it keeps him in touch with the invention of new commodities, the improvement of old, and the constant advance in industry.
In tracing back the history of advertising, signs and criers are found in Palestine, Gree,e, and Rome, where they were used for public announcements and a few private purposes. Pompeii has furnished us with many wall in scriptions in red and black, as well as the famil iar Roman signs, the amphora and two slaves for a wine shop, a goat for a dairy, or a boy being whipped for a school. Quaint signs pre vailed throughout the Middle Ages, and the public crier was an important institution in towns. It was, however, the advent of printing a ml later of the newspaper which provided an adequate medium for advertising, although it was not until the industrial changes of the nine teenth century had revolutionized production, creating innumerable new commodities and stim ulating new wants, that advertising could become an important feature of commercial life. In the seventeenth century small advertisements appear in the newspapers for books, tea, coffee, or medicine. The chief advertisements for a hundred years or more arc curiously illustrative of the crude social customs. A heavy stamp tax hampered the growth of newspapers and advertising in England until 1835.
America is par excellence the country of the advertiser. In the colonial papers, advertise ments furnish material for history. Brief no tices tell of new goods just imp‘orted from Eng land• coffee, slave sales, runaway slaves and ser vants, or lost cattle. Advertising, has grown with the newspapers. In 1795 there were 200 newspapers in the United States: in 1850, 2526; and in 1895, 20,217. Newspaper advertising on a large scale dates from the establishment of the New York Sun in 1833, followed shortly hr the New York Herald, the Philadelphia Public Lcdqcr, and the New York Tribune. Estimates of the amount initially spent on advertising in the United States are as high as $500,000,000. The mediums for advertising arc as follows: (1) The newspapers, magazine:, and trade journals, which carry about of the business: (2) occasional literature, such as catalogues, booklets, circulars, almanacs, calendars, or hand bills: (3) street advertising, including boards (see PosTEu), stereopticons, signs, and street-ears; ( 4) salesmen; and (5) personal advertising. The past twenty years have so increased the importance of advertising that specialization has become imperative. Agencies with large capital provide the mediums and suggest the methods, talented writers are in demand, effective illustration is being devel oped, and advertising magazines discuss the theory and practice of advertising. Business men now begin to appreciate that advertising is no mere incident of competition, but frequently the most important department, upon whose skillful management the growth and success of the busi ness depends.