As the economy expanded during the 19th century, advertising
In the United States, the success of this advertising format eventually led to the growth of mail-order advertising.
In June 1836, French newspaper La Presse was the first to include paid advertising in its pages, allowing it to lower its price, extend its readership and increase its profitability and the formula was soon copied by all titles. Around 1840, Volney B. Palmer established the roots of the modern day advertising agency in Philadelphia. In 1842 Palmer bought large amounts of space in various newspapers at a discounted rate then resold the space at higher rates to advertisers. The actual ad - the copy, layout, and artwork - was still prepared by the company wishing to advertise; in effect, Palmer was a
The situation changed in the late 19th century when the advertising agency of N.W. Ayer & Son was founded. Ayer and Son offered to plan, create, and
for its customers. By 1900 the advertising agency had become the focal point of creative planning, and advertising was firmly established as a profession. Around the same time, in France, Charles-Louis Havas extended the services of his news agency, Havas to include advertisement
, making it the first French group to organize. At first, agencies were brokers for advertisement space in newspapers. N. W. Ayer & Son was the first full-service agency to assume responsibility for advertising content. N.W. Ayer opened in 1869, and was located in Philadelphia.
At the turn of the 20th century, there were few career choices for women in business; however, advertising was one of the few. Since women were responsible for most of the
in their household, advertisers and agencies recognized the value of women's
during the creative process. In fact, the first American advertising to use a sexual sell was created by a woman � for a soap product
, the advertisement featured a couple with the message "The skin you love to touch".
Modern advertising was created with the innovative techniques used in tobacco advertising beginning in the 1920s,
with the campaigns of Edward Bernays, which is often considered as the founder of modern, Madison Avenue advertising. The tobacco industries was one of the firsts to make use of mass production, with the introduction of the Bonsack machine to roll cigarettes. The Bonsack machine allowed the production of cigarettes for a mass markets, and the tobacco industry needed to match such an increase in supply with the creation of a demand from the masses through advertising.
With the
, marketing through the Internet opened new
for advertisers and contributed to the "dot-com" boom of the 1990s. Entire corporations operated solely on advertising
, offering everything from coupons to free Internet access. At the turn of the 21st century, a number of websites including the search engine Google, started a change in online advertising by emphasizing
intended to help, rather than inundate, users. This has led to a plethora of similar efforts and an increasing trend of interactive advertising.
The share of advertising spending
to GDP has changed little across large changes in media. For example, in the US in 1925, the main advertising media were newspapers, magazines, signs on streetcars, and outdoor posters. Advertising spending as a share of GDP was about
. By 1998, television and radio had become major advertising media. Nonetheless, advertising spending as a share of GDP was slightly lower�about