Advertising

With the Industrial Revolution, the production of goods entered a new era, one defined by sheer volume. This necessitated a change in the way products--from foods to household appliances--were bought, used, and, most importantly, how they were advertised. Now that advertising is ever-present to the point of being intrusive (the automotive industry alone spent an estimated $20,518.2 million in advertising in 2004), early advertising, by comparison, was simple and honest.

When radio and then television entered the scene, advertising added sound and motion to its arsenal, carving out a larger slice of our cultural psyche. The products most advertised included (and still include today) food, drugs, cosmetics, soaps, automobiles, tobacco, appliances, and oil products. In the 1950s and 1960s, the ad industry took a new approach to marketing, infusing it with creativity while mocking conformity--much like the counterculture of the time did.

Today, most advertising aims not just to highlight the benefits of a particular product, but to create a memorable multi-media brand image, too. Talking chihuahuas and other campaigns rich with special effects have come a long way from the quaint Burma Shave billboards of the past. As technology has advanced, so have the ways advertisers market their wares, as evidenced by internet banners and movie 'plugs.'

Thanks to those same modern technologies, though, it is now easier than ever for collectors of antique tin signs, Coca Cola posters, and other by-gone advertisements to add to their collections. Yellowing ads for turn-of-the century soaps, unlike those that appear over the airwaves or pop up out of a virtual vacuum on a computer screen, are tangible reminders of simpler times. By saving a relic from an earlier time, one saves that era's sensibilities, too.