The rise of advertising in the United States

Advertising did, in fact, influence how most companies position their goods to consumers. Organizations’ new advanced promotional practices did not begin today. Any main incidents and personalities played an important role in the developments. Scholars discuss how advertisements in the United States evolved from imperial to professional up to 1960. (Applegate p. 1-132). It is undeniable that it was by newspapers that the groundwork was laid that ultimately played a vital role in the establishment of advertising agents. With the emergence of the advertising agencies, gradual developments were experienced until 1960 where significant advertising changes occurred in American business history as discussed.
Media technologies and formats

The first advertising was done in the pamphlets and signboards in the American Colonies. The pamphlets and signboards were primarily used in the 17th Century when the first printing presses were established in the United States. The printing presses had existed for more than 50 years before they were authorized to print newspapers where some advertisement could be written. The newspapers were majorly used to make advertisement starting from the eighteenth century for instance by John Campbell Boston news-letter which was the first newspaper that produced more than one issue. At this phase, advertisements only occupied smaller parts of the newspapers since most of the printing press and individuals had not recognized the importance of advertising. In the late eighteenth century, now most newspapers printers used to fill the front pages with the advertisement to attract merchants. Newspapers were therefore used and were published by famous advertising agencies where the production based on the amount of sale. The development of industries and offering of advertising discipline in colleges in 19 century and 20 century spearheaded more developments in the field to various technologies and formats used today.

Gender roles

Among the six key contributors in the area of advertising, there was only one female gender. These pioneers include P.T Barnum, Lydia Pinkham, John Wanamaker, Albert Lasker, Stanley Resor and Elliott White Springs. They are all famously known for key contributions that includes advertising master, the patient medicine cure queen, a progenitor of modern advertising, a market research consumer and a groundbreaking purveyor of sexual innuendo respectively. All these people played a significant role as outlined to give meaning to the application of advertising in influencing users of various information and products across the United States. It is apparent that the contributions had a gender imbalance. It is thus indisputable to extrapolate that the male sex was more active than females in contributing towards advertising.

The content of advertising

As earlier noted, pamphlets and signboards were used before the newspapers took over it. The advertising content varied based on the developments that were undergoing in the advertising and media industry. The pamphlets gave an in-depth description of the goods and services that were available in the United States. No other information could be published in the pamphlets. For the signboards, they only contained addresses and symbols. The addresses provided brief information that could only portray the theme. With time, symbols became popular among the business people and could be effectively be comprehended within the colonies. Moreover, the 18th century was mostly characterized by the use of newspapers. However, the content of the advertisement kept changing to take a better course towards the 19th and 20th centuries. The first advertisement to appear in the newspaper occupied a few inches of space. The content and space of the advertisement kept increasing with time as the population, circulation, and trade increased. During this period, the US had few newspapers printers who were motivated by different factors and intentions regarding the papers printed. As a result, there was an improvement in the content.

Works Cited

Applegate, Edd. The Rise of Advertising in the United States: A History of Innovation to 1960.

Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Print.