Marketing and the Birth of Advertising

To those of us not involved in the world of marketing it can be quite confusing to differentiate between marketing, selling, advertising and branding; and with technology the distinction is becoming ever more blurred. 

Marketing is the science of identifying and meeting the needs of consumers. It involves analysing various markets, including keeping up with the changes caused by technology, politics, the economy and even the weather, and then seeing how you can utilise these changes in order to satisfy your customer's needs. 

Selling is the art of showing the customer how your product meets their needs and convincing them that you are offering them a better solution than your competitors and then getting them to part with their money in exchange for your product.

Advertising is the way of bringing your product to the attention of the market, this can be via print media, digital media, broadcast media or any combination of these. Advertising is generally paid for although sometimes, especially in print media, it can mimic an article or even in the case of television it can mimic programming which is why it is necessary to mark it as advertising or an 'info-mercial'.

And branding is about your product as a whole, how it looks and also how it is perceived. Advertising/Branding is part of a promotional strategy and a promotional strategy is part of marketing.

The Birth of Modern Advertising

Louis Daguerre created the first commercially viable process for fixing and printing an image, which became known as the daguerreotype, and in 1838 he made history by taking the first ever photograph of a human. 

This breakthrough heralded the beginning of photography and seriously impacted on the ability of portrait artists to make a living. The previous year Godefroy Engelmann had devised a method of four colour printing based on lithography which he called chromolithographic. These two events signified the birth of modern advertising by enabling the economical reproduction of full colour imagery.

In the mid 1860's an enterprising Parisian printer paid artists to produce paintings which he could then turn into advertisements. Hence you have a plethora of Art based advertising posters that are still collectable today. 

Coincidentally Thomas Barrett who had in 1865 become his father-in-laws partner at the Pears Soap factory bought a painting entitled 'Bubbles' by John Everett Millais. Barrett had the Pears logo added to the painting and started a long tradition of Pears advertising incorporating well known paintings with slogans. 

Subsequently Barrett went on to be considered "the father of modern advertising" this wasn't due to any particular business models he applied but was in regard to his methods of coming up with new ideas to keep his product firmly in the focus of the marketplace. In particular he employed testimonials on his packaging thus creating the celebrity endorsement.

Images

"Special"
 FreeImages.com/Jamie Harris

PearsSoap 
http://theevolutionofdesign.files.wordpress.com/2011/04/bubbles-pears-soap1.jpg


Daguerreotype
http://benbeck.co.uk/firsts/2_The_Human_Subject/photo1h.htm