Advertising

Abstract

The massive opportunity to catch the public eye which the Great Exhibition of 1851 provided was not missed. Sir John Bennett bought the space on the back wrapper of the catalogue to advertise clocks and watches, and in all fifty-three pages of the catalogue consisted of advertisements. But mass advertising still lacked the respectability usually associated with Prince Albert and his committee. Carlyle reflected the ‘best’ thinking in his disapproval of ‘puffery’.

There is not a man or hat-maker born into the world but feels, or has felt, that he is degrading himself if he speaks of his excellences and prowesses, and supremacy in his craft; his inmost heart says to him, ‘Leave thy friends to speak of these; if possible thy enemies to speak of these; but at all events, thy friends.’

‘Keep the shops well lit.’ Reputed to be the dying words of J. J. Sainsbury.

The usefulness and value of most things depend, not so much on their own nature as upon the number of people who can be persuaded to desire and use them.

An Advertisers’ Guide to Publicity (1887).