History of visual advertising

Printed advertisement

• A form of advertising can be found even in 3000 BC , the Sumerians invented pictograms which could and were used to communicate messages through making marks on rocks and in caves.

• In 105 AD , paper is discovered in China.

• Invention of mechanical movable type printing (1439, Gutenberg)

• First newspaper advertising (La Gazette)  - 1631 (France)

• "Tatler" , the first world's magazine - 1709

The above show the evolution of writing and advertising very briefly, there were plenty of other important historical events that had an impact on the printed, sound and visual advertising we have now.

Finding "the first ever advert with graphics/illustrations" is not easy, advertisement suddenly became popular at the end of 19th century, many companies and advertisers used and still use slogans to promote their products and attract the attention of the public. Obviously, the point of advertising is to try to sell the product in the best possible way.

In 18th/19th century, it was quite common that skinny and what media calls now "ideal" women were not found attractive, so seeing an advert for a "get fat" product now seems quite weird and out of place:

We can't really judge on the effectiveness of this advert , the idea of ideal woman was different , maybe this was a successful ad for those women who did want to put on weight, but because nowadays women and even men tend to desire to be skinny and fit seeing a product like this would not be appealing to most at all.

I think that it is not a surprise that Coca-Cola was one of the first major companies that started advertising their products by print.

This coupon was made in 1888 to help to promote Coca-Cola, it was one of the first ways in which Coca-Cola advertised their product, it was not an advert only, it entitled a holder of this ticket to redeem it for a free bottle of coke, which was an even better and effective way of advertising.

I think that we do not have to think or talk about the design of it, the information is all there, the logo is there, the quality or layout is irrelevant. Advertising in this case was by giving people something for free, and obviously, testimonials are important, people try something, they like it and they buy it.

Audio-Visual/Visual Advertisement


First ever TV advert was broadcasted in America in 1941, so around 12 years after first TV broadcast in the US and 8 years after the first TV broadcast was launched in the UK.

The advert was very simplistic and apparently the cost of its production was only 9 dollars, very simple short announcement + usage of signifiers that stood for time and America. ( the advert was for Bulova - a watch company).