Advertising – The First Million Years

A little more than 1 million years ago, an artist watched a man battle a mean dinosaur. Returning to his cave, the artist sketched the scene on his wall. “Sportsman In Loincloth Battling Triceratops,” he titled it. Later that evening, over cocktails, his friends saw what was probably the world’s first print ad.

Scholars call the period that followed, world history. I call it advertising in the making. And why not? It makes for great copy. In case you didn’t know it, copywriting was actually invented in 3500 B.C. by the Sumerians. But it didn’t catch on until 1800 B.C., when the first popular type face appeared. It was called Canaanite – a precursor to the popular typeface, Helvetica Bold. Some years later, the world’s first logo appeared – the Star of David, only to be followed by a catchy spin-off – the Christian crucifix. Soon, both logos led to “Thank God for God” bumper stickers and an ongoing competitive campaign that was the inspiration for the Coke-Pepsi challenge. The battle also produced the industry’s first memorable continuing character: the Pope.

Meanwhile, in 500 B.C., over tea at a Chinese restaurant, Confucius said: “Without knowing the force of words, it is impossible to know men.” Presto! The philosophy of creative copywriting was born. Examples of the art can still be found in today’s fortune cookies.

Socrates won “Best of Show” the following spring. The assignment was a toughy: sell “contentment.” His ad read: “Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty.” Socrates’ ink was known by everyone – perhaps to his own admission, the business killed him.

Two hundred years later, the world saw its first blockbuster campaign, created by Alexander the Great. Many of Alex’s peers attributed his successes to excellent reach and frequency.

The next thousand years brought with them a creative drought. Sure, St. Paul and St. Augustine came up with a few memorable tag lines, and Genghis Khan got far with a hard-driving campaign, but no one seemed able to score with the Big Idea. Until 1300 A.D. that is, when a handful of pricey Italian boutiques launched the concept of the Renaissance. The art direction was “Clio” from day one. Print got a boost, too, from a guy named Gutenberg, who opened the world’s first type house.

Then, in 1492, Columbus went international with the biggest idea since the Renaissance-untapped markets. And a decade later Leonardo da Vinci advanced the hottest new business theory to date: “If you don’t have the product, invent it.” It was rumored that da Vinci, Michelangelo and Machiavelli would quit their respective agencies and join forces, but the heavy-hitting trio never got it together. Apparently, the two creatives came to believe that Machiavelli was only out for himself.

In the 1600’s, Shakespeare made long copy respectable; Rembrandt walked away with all the art director awards; and Isaac Newton proved empirically that the oldest copy line in the universe -”What goes up must come down,”-was effective against all target demos.

Halfway around the world, Ben Franklin lit up the industry when he and a bunch of account execs got together in Philadelphia to introduce a shaky new product: the USA. Jefferson did the copywriting on the campaign, and Washington was management supervisor. Its U.S.P. was “In God We Trust.” The only trouble was the logo. Account wanted a turkey. Research said the crucifix had high awareness.

Media suggested several symbols, one for each major demographic group. Finally, creative pitched the eagle “because it was bald.” Nobody understood the rationale, but who were they to second-guess genius? Francis Scott Key was brought in to do the music, and the rest is history.

Back in Europe, Napoleon broke his own campaign with one of history’s best-known mnemonics: the Man With His Hand in the Jacket. He hired Beethoven, of Bonn Music, to do the jingle; but, after four submissions, fired the tunesmith, calling him “deaf.” Beethoven turned around and sold his Fifth to Czar Alexander, who used it effectively to trash the French Emperor’s market share.

The battle, however, hardly compared to the clash of Blue versus Gray in the U.S. Civil War. Many considered the mud slinging bad for the industry. Others said it was worth it because the U.S. came out “new and improved.” Indeed a decade later, some of America’s greatest creative work appeared: Bell reached out and touched someone, Edison bought good things to life, and automobiles began to build excitement.

Meanwhile, Marconi claimed that radio was hot; Freud claimed that our ids were hot, and the Wright Brothers forced our industry to double the per diem. Yet even Lenin and FDR, who made revolutionary breakthroughs in the field, couldn’t match the biggest ad blitz of the century” The Third Reich. Armed with a powerful logo, excellent media placement and hard-hitting creative, Hitler’s campaign seemed destined to last a thousand years. There was only one hitch. The strategy-world domination through genocide-turned off the public. And as we all know, if the strategy is wrong, the creative can’t be right.

Once the air cleared following World War II, the industry discovered its most important weapon since the caveman’s club: Television. Like the bombs that proceeded them, TV ads exploded onto the scene in a battle for our attention. With words like targets, campaign, launch and shoot, you would think we agencies were being run by the military.

Finally in the 1990’s, advertising went from postal to digital making it possible for ads to multiply for our undivided attention. In a short 1 million years, humans evolved from homosapiens into homoconsumens. Though come to think of it, advertising has been around since day one. After all, God created man in his own image.