A.D. Advertising back in the day, billboards in Pompeii

In his 1875 book, A History of Advertising From the Earliest Times, Henry Sampson wrote that billboards of a sort were present in Pompeii in -- 79 A.D.! "The walls... are covered with notices. These advertisements, hasty and transitory as they are, bear voluminous testimony as to the state of society, the wants and requirements and the actual standard of public taste of the Romans in that age."

1732: Ben Franklin invents... art direction!

Franklin gets credit for lots of things. But his least-known invention may be the creating the role of art director. The book, Advertising In America, The First 200 Years, notes that the publisher of Poor Richard's Almanac was the first to put pictures in advertisements, adding eye candy for copy relief. He also understood the power of white space, leaving lots of it around headlines to catch your eye.

P.T. Barnum, circus mogul and copywriter

Barnum's best performance may have been as copywriter, recognizing the value of a well-turned phrase. Waxing poetic about pachyderms and performers, he trumpeted headlines like:

· "Caravans of Giant Coursing Elephants and Camels"

· "After an Unbroken Night of Twenty Centuries, the Resplendent Sun of Imperial Roman Pastimes Reappears."

Дата добавления: 2015-07-19