History of Advertisements
In the modern world there are many advertisements that they seem to haunt us wherever we go. Even in the ancient world there were ads and the earliest that has been recorded is from the 11th to 7th centuries BCE; being found in the ruins of Thebes in Egypt. Modern advertisement was born in England 1865, by man known as the father of modern advertisement Thomas J. Barratt. Barratt was a chairman of a soap purveyor A&F Pears becoming so successful that “Pears” became a synonym for soap back in the day. Barratt’ strategy consisted of combining eye-catching images by leading artists and memorable slogans.
Modern Advertisements
Did you know that on the daily we see about 4,000 to 10,000 advertisements? Did you know that that number quadruples when on a pirating website? What I’m getting at is that advertisements are everywhere. Look at times square, the place is just one huge advertisement. You can’t play a mobile game anymore because after every level completed you watch an ad.
In the mobile game ads you play along to another game too so now I feel like I have to download it too because now I’m interested. See how these ads are tricking you! they know that were getting dumber and dumber by the day cause were on our phones 24/7. Advertisements today don’t have much substance to them and are just meant to let the public know about the product they’re plain vapid. Providing almost entertainment in advertisements companies nowadays are more concerned with selling the most while spending the least, which makes sense. Then again, if you are going to take away from my video, show, or podcast at least keep me entertained.
All the ads I see are just basically screaming “GIVE US MONEY!” or “BUY OUR PRODUCT”. There is no real creativity anymore. For example, in the halftime of the SuperBowl when all the commercials played, people made up conspiracy theories for the amount of UFOs that were being used to market everything, meaning they WORKED people were talking about them thinking they were onto something. Advertisements want to take our attention and keep it for as long as possible to sell their product; the best way to take someone’s attention is to show them something that isn’t seen in everyday life.
The usage of UFOs has become a meta for advertisements due to their mysterious nature. I digress, there is nothing good, entertaining, or USEFUL to take away from modern advertisements.
The Golden Age of Advertisements
The golden age of advertising is behind us, as nowadays the work put into advertising is lazy and not creative. Before the age of the many streaming services that just line their pockets in money; there was cable tv, and it was glorious, as there was a plethora of shows to watch all in one place. Whenever commercials interrupted the daily scheduled programming, they were entertaining, as they made you laugh and giggle.
Take Geico for example, with their goofy commercials they hammered the fact in my brain that “15 minutes could save me 15% or more on car insurance.” A highlight from Geico is the series of the “Cavemen” commercial, in which a caveman gets offended after the host exclaims that, “it’s so easy to use Geico.com, a caveman could do it.” The caveman commercials from Geico portrayed a seemingly racist campaign against the intelligence of an entire group of people. Additionally, there was a short series of these commercials in which a caveman goes to therapy because they thought they were past this, they thought they lived in a more progressive society, but sadly they still have a long way to go.
Another entertaining commercial were the Jack in the Box commercials; personally, I have never eaten there but the mascot would make me slightly uncomfortable because he seems erratic and almost violent. Jack in the Box called out Burger King for microwaving their burgers, and you didn’t have to tell me that for me to know they were microwaved.
What I’m getting at is that you don’t ever see companies going at each other throats like this unless we’re talking about Wendy’s on twitter.
Moving on, one of the greatest commercials I have ever seen was a Skittles commercial, in which a man gets cursed so whatever he touches turns to skittles. The more the commercial goes one the more morbid and darker it gets, the man reveals that he cannot hold his newborn baby, for he will turn into skittles. Also, he had met a man on the bus that day and he shook his hand and revealed that “he will never see his family ever again”. This commercial shows the man getting this power recently because he tries picking up the phone and he shook a man’s hand that day revealing that he killed him. It is never revealed how this man got his power, hinting at the fact that there is more to this story that isn’t revealed.
Finally, the best commercials of the time came from the snack that smiles back, Goldfish. Goldfish really tried to market their delicious product while being as creative as could be. Goldfish made a perfect commercial adding a story to their fish snack characters. Goldfish ran their ads between 2005 to 2021, this is HUUGE. This commercial series ran for 11 SEAONS! At some point when watching your scheduled programing, there is a moment where another kind of entertainment came, and it was unprecedented, erratic and adventurous. More than just a story, but a genius marketing move that focused on the creativity of a team rather than just the superficial want to sell more product that most companies have nowadays. It took the media by storm as THE NEW YORK TIMES wrote a story on this extraordinary series of amazingly crafted commercials.
I digress, but I hope companies will put more effort into the creativity of their employees rather than the meta that everyone uses to market their product.
About the Contributor
Merdardo Saravia Zelaya, Staff Writer
Medardo is someone who never knows what is going on due to sleeping for about 11 hours per week. It’s not all bad, Medardo’s favorite show is Infinity Train, with his favorite season being the very first one. He is a strange person keeping busy with school and the desire to be good at writing.