Practice English Listening C1 Exercises – The history of advertising

A

ancient Egyptian stone and wooden tablets, newspapers, magazines, mail, catalogs, radio, billboards, TV, infomercials, cell phones, the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube

B

1 b   2 b   3 c   4 b   5 a   6 a   7 b   8 a

C

1 mail   2 television   3 newspaper

4 newspaper   5 television   6 mail

Narrator:   Advertising, it seems, is everywhere. Almost anywhere we go and everywhere we look, we’re surrounded by ads offering us deals, suggesting products to us, and insisting we give them our attention. By some estimates, with online ads, we may see thousands of ads each day! But when did this all begin? And how did it get so crazy?

The history of advertising is really the history of communication. Every time a new technology is invented that allows people to communicate with each other, advertisers use it to sell more stuff to their customers.

It all began thousands of years ago; we don’t really know when. We do know that around 2000 BCE, Egyptians were announcing messages to the public by carving on stone and wooden tablets. Heh, making a typo back then could really ruin a person’s day!

Advertising as we know it today started with the invention of the printing press in the 1400s. That led to the rise of newspapers and right along with it – drumroll, please – newspaper advertisements!

The first classified ads appeared in 1631, and the world’s first magazine, the Tatler, was published in England in 1709. Ever since, newspaper and magazine ads have recommended everything from coats to carriages to hair care products to their readers.

Mail services have been delivering letters to people for thousands of years. But by the late 1800s, modern-day efficiency meant that it cost a sender a lot less to mail something. Companies like Montgomery Ward and Sears & Roebuck began sending postcards and catalogs as advertisements directly to customers – and direct marketing was born. Now you know who to say thanks to for that mailbox full of junk mail!

The radio came along in 1921, and it wasn’t long until radio hosts were mentioning products on the air.

The automobile became widespread in the early twentieth century, and soon drivers touring the countryside were greeted by billboards telling them where to buy gas for the car.

The television was invented in 1927, and the first television commercial debuted in 1941, entertaining viewers and providing advertisers with one of the most effective forms of advertising ever created. And it was only another 30 years before that other great invention was born: the infomercial.

Then cell phones became popular in the 80s; the World Wide Web, or the Internet, in the 90s; and Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube in the twenty-first century. With each new technology, there were new kinds of ads demanding that we pay attention.

And tomorrow? Who knows? Perhaps advertisers will propose that advertisements be broadcast in our dreams, or get messages to us in our contact lenses, or show us ads on places like the moon. One thing is for sure – as long as there are things to sell and ways to communicate, advertisers will find ways to advertise.