Talk:History of advertising

Background

This new article as a spinoff of the History section of the article on advertising. I will be adding significant new material, from around the world. Rjensen (talk) 05:36, 8 September 2015 (UTC)

How many fathers does advertising need?

In the section on 19th century - Great Britain, we are informed that Thomas J. Barratt is the "father of modern advertising", but then in a later section (sec 4.5) an entire section is devoted to Albert Lasker who we are told is the "father of modern advertising". Both these characters are also named as the "father of modern advertising in the article Advertising on which much of this article is based (straight cut and paste). Thankfully the article on Advertising has recently removed claims that Arthur Nielsen founded the advertising industry, so that now we only have two candidates vying for the claim of "father of advertising," instead of three! I can't help wondering how many fathers advertising really needs? BronHiggs (talk) 06:29, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

humans get by with only one father but advertising needs much more help. Who says there can only be one father? actually in real life there are numerous children out there with multiple claims of fatherhood-- Rjensen (talk) 18:08, 22 January 2018 (UTC)

Did we really need a separate article on the History of advertising?

The article Advertising is primarily concerned with the history of advertising and has a few bits and pieces about media and a hierarchy of effects model tacked on as an afterthought. It is not a great article, but did we really need a separate article on the History of advertising. When we compare these two articles, it soon becomes clear that most of the content in this article has simply been cut and paste from the Advertising article which preceded it. Here follows a table comparing some of the main sections in the two articles.

Comparison of articles on Advertising and History of advertising

Advertising article	History of advertising article	Comment
Heading: History 4 paragaphs covering Egyptians, ancient China, Europe in the Middle Ages & 18th century one image (Chinese Bronze Plate)	Heading: Pre-history 3 paragaphs covering Egyptians, ancient China and Europe in the Middle Ages one image (Chinese Bronze Plate)	Identical concepts, identical prose and identical sequence in first 3 paragraphs The paragraph about the 18th century in the Advertising article has been moved to the heading 19th century in the History of advertising article Identical images used Both articles overlook studies reporting on advertising in newspapers and magazines in 17th century Italy, France and Britain
Heading: 19th century 4 paragraphs covering Thomas J. Barratt, the French newspaper, La Presse, Volney B. Palmer and Charles Louis Havas one image (Edo Period LEL Flyer)	Heading: 19th century Section opening consists of the paragraph about the 18th century and the content about La Presse Section sub-heading, 'Great Britain covers content about Thomas J. Barratt Content about C.L. Havas in the Advertising article has been moved to its own section France in the History of advertising article Content about Volney Palmer in the Advertising article has been relocated to its own section United States in History of advertising one image (Edo Period LEL Flyer)	Comment Identical concepts, identical prose Identical use of images Sequence has been changed somewhat between the two articles The History of advertising includes some unique sub-headings that are not paralleled in the Advertising article
Heading: 20th century 6 paragraphs covering impact of industrialisation (incl. Bernays), Herbert Hoover, tobacco advertising, cultural assimilation, role of women and pyschologists	Heading: Since 1900: United States and Canada 4 paragraphs covering impact of industrialisation, tobacco advertising & Bernays, Herbert Hoover, cultural assimilation	identical concepts and prose minor changes to sequence The article on Advertising includes unique content about the role of women in advertising that is not paralleled in the History of advertising
Heading: On the radio from the 1920s 2 paragraphs covering origins and sponsoring one image (Advertisement for a live radio show)	Heading: On the radio from the 1920s 4 paragraphs covering origins and 3 paras devoted to public service advertising one image (Advertisement for a live radio show)	The article on History of advertising has three unique paragraphs about public service advertising that are not paralleled in the Advertising article both sections use an identical image
Heading: Commercial television in the 1950s one paragraph about origins of radio, naming Dumont television	No compararable heading	Commercial television is a unique section in the Advertising article, but the theme is canvassed under individual country headings in the History of advertising
Heading: Cable television from the 1980s 1 paragraphs covering origins of TV	Heading: Cable television from the 1980s 1 paragraphs covering origins of TV	identical concepts and identical prose
Heading: On the Internet from the 1990s 5 paragraphs covering the dot.com boom, share of adspend, guerilla marketing, business models and domain name registration	Heading: On the Internet from the 1990s 4 paragraphs covering the dot.com boom, share of adspend, business models and Chinese advertising	Advertising has two unique paragraphs (guerilla marketing and domain name registatration) History of advertising has one unique paragraph (Chinese advertising) Both sections share three paragraphs in common, identical prose

The Advertising article is around 8,900 words in length (exclusive of contents, see also, external links and references) -of which 2,125 words are devoted to the history of advertising. The History of advertising article is around 7,000 words in length. It shares approximately 1,400 of its words with the Advertising article - words that are either exact copies or very close paraphrases.

BronHiggs (talk) 07:35, 9 September 2017 (UTC)

@BronHiggs: I applaud the careful analysis in the table. I have not studied these two articles in detail. However, I think Wikipedia readers generally benefit from main articles with short sections that are expanded in other articles. That would support the current status with a main article on "Advertising" having a small to modest sized section on "History" that starts a link to the "main article" on "History of advertising", as it does. If you are concerned about the duplication and the length of the "Advertising" article, I suggest a three step process:

1. Make sure this "History of advertising" contains everything in the "History" section of the "Advertising" article.
2. For changes that might be challenged, I encourage you to continue discussing them on "Talk" pages like you have here and various places in Talk:Advertising.
3. What is your experience with changes you've made that you believe were written from a neutral point of view citing credible sources after first discussing them a few days earlier on Talk pages? It's more work. It takes more time. But it also is more likely to build a consensus for constructive changes. Sometimes other editors will make those changes for you, which makes it more difficult for stalkers "engaging in vindictive editing and delete most of my contributions on the slightest pretext." If you wait a few days and someone else has not made the change you propose -- and no one has counseled otherwise on the Talk page -- then you will be in a stronger position to appeal a reversion without a reason. Have you tried that? (I've experienced a few incidents similar to the stalking you described. However, that was just on one article or on related articles. Vaguely related to this is the issue of people being paid to edit Wikipedia. That's usually against Wikipedia's rules, because too many such edits involve POV violations but may be difficult to detect. In general, it can be difficult to distinguish between a very active volunteer editor and one who is paid -- including volunteers with POV problems. The person who was paid to edit Wikipedia reported that proposing changes on Talk pages often induce others to make the changes they propose. I'd call that borderline but still legit.)

DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:31, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Yes, in my opinion we need a separate article on the History of advertising. Different readers have different interests -- for example history students are much less interested in how advertiisng works in 2017 compared to 1917 or 1817. I agree with :DavidMCEddy. Rjensen (talk) 20:08, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

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[[File:Pears Soap 1900.jpg|right|thumb|A 1900 British ad for Bananas]]

On 2017-11-20, this article contained [[File:Pears Soap 1900.jpg|right|thumb|A 1900 British ad for Bananas]]. The caption looks to me like subtle vandalism: I do not see any bananas or references to such in the image. It looks like "A 1900 British ad for soap". I plan to change it. If it really does advertise bananas, that needs to be spelled out someplace. DavidMCEddy (talk) 16:38, 20 November 2017 (UTC)

Needs edits

This article has a lot of information, but badly needs an editor. There are several instances of unfinished or duplicated sentences and stylistically inappropriate sentences. I don't know how to flag an article for "needs review," but if I did, I'd flag this one. Breckelli (talk) 03:53, 2 May 2023 (UTC)