A brief history of advertising
                     A brief history of advertising
Watson F
Writes on ad managing using ad servers for publishers, 
involved with Ad server for publishers from Adspeed.
Everybody sees advertising pretty much every day but we might not 
know about its history and how it has evolved over the years. 
Advertising has been around for a long time and went through more 
changes than we can keep track of. One of the first forms of advertising 
is definitely word-of-mouth because we are social creatures. Word-of-
mouth requires no special technology or standard to tell other people 
about things that we like or don’t like. Interestingly enough, word-of-
mouth is still one of the most effective advertising methods because of 
its simplicity and effectiveness.
Early printed advertisements
Printed ads became popular in the 17th century because they went along with the creation 
and rising of newspapers. Advertisements were mostly classified ads for jobs, goods, services 
and announcements. In the 18th century, the industrial revolution happened. Large scale 
manufacturing became popular and the need to market those mass products to the public 
became important. Advertising agencies were born to professionally create ads with the 
help of artists and writers. Newspapers became even more popular in the 19th century as 
technologies made making and distributing newspapers cheaper. Newspapers were more 
frequent and more widely available. With a larger audience, print ads influenced more 
people and advertisers understood the importance of reach and demographics.
Television and radio ads
In the early 20th century, television and radio stations helped spread 
information to more people faster and create more markets for 
advertising. New ad formats for video advertising and radio advertising 
were created. New targeting options and new ad standards were 
adopted. Viewers became very familiar with 30-second video ads and ad 
breaks when watching TVs.
Online advertising
In the later 20th century, the Internet was invented and changes in 
advertising really sped up. Online advertising started with classified ads 
and display banner ads. Early ad servers connected publishers and 
advertisers through direct relationships and via ad networks. Many 
online companies started relying on advertising as one of their revenue 
sources or even the only source of income. In 2000, Google launched 
AdWords as a way to monetize its powerful search engine. Small and 
simple text-based ads were displayed alongside search results. The ads 
were relevant to what the users were searching and that was a critical 
factor to the success of AdWords and online advertising in general. 
Before, advertising was not targeted and it served to any and all 
viewers. Targeting options were often very limited.
The expansion of broadband Internet and the increase of mobile usage 
changed the way people live, socialize, play, work. These factors 
boosted the demand for online advertising. Responding to that demand, 
the industry created new ad technologies and built new ad servers, ad 
exchanges, ad networks, DSP’s (Demand-Side Platforms), SSP’s (Supply-
Side Platforms) to offer advertisers more viewers together with more 
precise and personalized targeting options.
Future ad tech
Many poorer countries and regions are still not connected to the Internet 
so future growth is still to come. Mobile devices are getting cheaper and 
mobile networks are getting faster with each new generation. 5G 
technology provides the required speed and bandwidth to make AR 
(Artificial Reality), VR (Virtual Reality), AI (Artificial Intelligence), Voice 
Technology and IoT (Internet of Things) mainstream. These new techs will 
have many new applications, including commercial applications that will 
benefit online advertising over the upcoming years. It is an exciting time 
for tech, especially ad tech.
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad 
management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks 
and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving 
technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable 
platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more 
efficiently. 
Thank you for spending your precious time in reading this article.