What is advertising?
It is difficult to find a satisfactory definition of advertising.
A quaint way to put it is to call it entrepreneurial imagination, an imagination that sees in a product possibilities that can only be realized by appealing to the public in new ways to create a desire where it did not exist before. It is a very broad word, an omnibus word that conveys different ideas to different people.
An advertising definition is not possible here, except that this entire article can be accepted as a definition. Advertising has advanced so rapidly through its various changes that even the latest dictionaries and encyclopedias are out of date in their attempts to define it. Yesterday’s advertising is not today’s advertising. Not so old men have witnessed its full development from an unreliable instrument of charlatans to its place as the driving force in the conduct and expansion of business.
Advertising in the dictionary sense has a history as old as that of the human race. As soon as there were enough people in the world, some kind of formal announcement had to be made. The early history of such advertisements, from proclamations to the beginning of pictorial and lettered inscriptions, from these primitive posters to the discovery of the printing press, and from the advent of the printing press to the beginning of actual advertising, is of interest. just for the archaeologist. It is of no value to the business entrepreneur. To understand modern advertising it would be of no help what ancient Phoenician coins would be to understand the principles of a modern bank.
Any attempt to ensure the sale of a product or service is advertising. The primitive merchant merchandise that is attractively displayed in front of his booth is advertising. A search ad, to secure a job or an employee, is advertising. An inscription on a wall, the thief in front of a side show, the promises of an internet marketer, the announcement of a new online technology, membership in an affiliate program, the wearing of a peculiar t-shirt or distinctive sticker on your car, these are all forms of advertising in which they seek to draw attention to a product or service that is for sale. For a product or service of general use, rich and poor, tall and short, men, women and even children, you have to appeal.
At least one principle that we know remains constant, it does not erode with the passage of time or the use and / or abuse of men, it does not care about the outside climate, nor does it consider their personal state of health, nor does it take into account the Circumstances that surround it, and you have to keep doing it, you have to feed it, there is no way to avoid it, keep asking for every ounce of your commitment if you expect some kind of visible return.
Whatever the appropriate definition of advertising, it is one thing to conclude, it is because it has been. And every successive year since the beginning of mankind entrepreneurship it has left its precious repository of new ideas, better methods, faster and greater efficiency, and the promise of even greater growth.