And so it begins

[Amianthus]

Advertising is a universal curse, but it was invented (along with political advertising known as propaganda) by Americans

Commercial messages and political campaign displays have been found in the ruins of ancient Arabia. Egyptians used papyrus to create sales messages and wall posters, while lost-and-found advertising on papyrus was common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome. Wall or rock painting for commercial advertising is another manifestation of an ancient advertising form, which is present to this day in many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America. ... As printing developed in the 15th and 16th century, advertising expanded to include handbills. In the 17th century advertisements started to appear in weekly newspapers in England. These early print advertisements were used mainly to promote: books and newspapers, which became increasingly affordable with advances in the printing press; and medicines, which were increasingly sought after as disease ravaged Europe. However, false advertising and so-called "quack" advertisements became a problem, which ushered in the regulation of advertising content.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advertising

Must be time travel...

[Xavier_Onassis]

By advertising, I mean mass-market advertising combined with marketing, not slogans painted on a wall in ancient Greece or Babylon. American marketing has progressed enormously from the  days of "none genuine without this signature" and "accept no substitutes' days.

Products are designed to sell to a particular audience, and marketed accordingly. Salton had been making cheapo home grills for eons, but some marketing expert discovered that there was a very large market segment that was not buying them that coincidentally identified with  George Foreman, and the rest is history.

Neons came in magenta because women like magenta cars.

[sirs]

Products are designed to sell to a particular audience, and marketed accordingly. Salton had been making cheapo home grills for eons, but some marketing expert discovered that there was a very large market segment that was not buying them that coincidentally identified with  George Foreman, and the rest is history.  Neons came in magenta because women like magenta cars.

And..................?

[Amianthus]

By advertising, I mean mass-market advertising combined with marketing, not slogans painted on a wall in ancient Greece or Babylon.

Well, that started with the printing press - well before there was an "America." That's why I quoted that entire section.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Printing ads in a newspaper is not the same as modern marketing and advertising, of course.

It is one of the lesser components these days.

[Amianthus]

Printing ads in a newspaper is not the same as modern marketing and advertising, of course.

It is one of the lesser components these days.

Newspapers were the equivalent of TV in those days.

And handbills were the equivalent of radio.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Newspapers were the equivalent of TV in those days.

And handbills were the equivalent of radio.
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Nothing is the equivalent of radio and TV.

Print ads are not going to sell Malibu Barbies to seven year old little girls.

Go on, prove it: write us a handbill that will get us all singing "I wish I had an Oscar Meyer Weiner"♪♪♪

Sell us millions of hula hoops, collections of Elvis hits, and Gazelle exerciser gizmos with an ad on page 13 of the Daily Blatt.

[Amianthus]

Go on, prove it: write us a handbill that will get us all singing "I wish I had an Oscar Meyer Weiner"♪♪♪

I'll be happy to do so, once you remove all TVs and radios from the face of the earth.

[Plane]

Advertising is a universal curse, but it was invented (along with political advertising known as propaganda) by Americans, and US companies have done more research in how to sucker ASmericans into buying crap they do not need, with money they have yet to earn, to impress people they do not know.

Searching the internet for postulations pertanant to "propaganda " produces a plethera of propositions.

This is a subject of great intrest to many .
I don't think that any of the Propaganda appeals were inventions of the US , but we have become the home of the phenominon in the popular mind haven't we?

Is this a necessacery side effect of free speech? Since so much depends on persuasion , can we be surprised that there is a professional class devoted to it?

If we lived under a  thumb propaganda might be less necessacery , there would certainly be less of one side at least.




http://www.greenwood.com/catalog/GR9605.aspx

http://books.google.com/books?id=wMRBAAAAIAAJ&q=propaganda+original+book+american&dq=propaganda+original+book+american&pgis=1

http://www.independent.org/publications/tir/article.asp?issueID=36&articleID=481
It is hard to believe that ?propaganda? was originally a neutral term, in some circumstances even a positive one. Derived from the Latin propagare, it meant simply a systematic publicizing of a given doctrine or worldview. For years the prominent Roman Catholic theologian and publicist Bishop Fulton J. Sheen was national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.

Only in the 1930s, with the rise of what was called the ?totos? (totalitarian regimes), did the entire concept come to appear somewhat shady.

..........................
Even World War II buffs will be surprised by some of Cull?s findings. Consider, for example, that President Franklin D. Roosevelt, meeting with King George VI at Hyde Park several months before the war broke out, assured the king that any bombing of London was bound to bring the United States into the war. When Paris fell to the Germans, FDR estimated Britain?s chances of survival as one in three. Far from ?appeasing? the British, Roosevelt drove a hard bargain in the destroyers-for-bases deal (and, though Cull does not say so, in lend-lease as well). Within Roosevelt?s supposedly ?Anglophile? administration, Assistant Secretary of State Adolf Berle harbored extensive suspicions of the British, as did FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda