Stone-Age Markets
Visio's Creative Director Kasperi Heikkilä looks back into the past in the first part of a new blog series. Brands, logos, jingles, and pop-up ads jumping out everywhere – the buzz and visual stimulation surrounding advertising and marketing is perceived as a modern phenomenon. But does this perception hold true? And what was marketing actually like across different historical eras?
When dealing with a broad topic like marketing, it is worth considering what the term actually means. Simply defined, marketing is persuasion aimed at making something appear as positive as possible in another person's eyes. For the purposes of this blog, it is simplest to tie the word marketing specifically to commercial advertising.
When Prometheus Innovated Fire
Humans have traded with each other long before the invention of writing. There is no reason to doubt that our ancestors competed in praising the first-class quality of their squirrel pelts. Without written material, however, our knowledge of these cultures is unfortunately limited.
The birth of the first civilizations in the Mediterranean region revolutionized commerce and, by extension, marketing. Large protected cities, agriculture, trade routes, and literacy sowed the seeds for the development of international trade and competition.
Marketing in antiquity resembled modern advertising in many ways. For example, Egyptians made advertising flyers and posters from papyrus. Among the Greeks, it was common to sign clay pots as a guarantee of quality, and Roman advertisements were magnificent wall paintings.
My Name Is Ozymandias
Personal branding is widely discussed today, but the people of antiquity were masters of it. It is no coincidence that even thousands of years later we remember the names of ancient greats, compare our own achievements to theirs, and make movies, books, and video games about them.
Ancient kings and leaders spent fortunes on being remembered. The most famous of these endeavors are probably the Egyptian pyramids, which were major PR projects in addition to burial chambers. Leaders' hunger for publicity has also left its mark on modern language – the English months July and August come from the names of dictators who ruled Rome two thousand years ago.
Not all publicity campaigns were this grandiose, however. For example, the Mesopotamian Nebuchadnezzar reminded the world of his existence through symbols pressed into bricks, and the Romans had the custom of minting coins with the busts of great men.
Bread and Circuses
Just as companies and brands today sponsor festivals and sports teams, events in ancient Rome often had a wealthy sponsor. Arena fights, chariot races, and plays were an effective way to gain positive attention.
Sponsoring gladiators was particularly popular. No wonder – the most popular gladiators were the superstars of their time. Due to the bloody nature of the sport, the investment was risky – life expectancy in arena combat was shorter than on a modern golf course.
A safer investment was poets. Although ancient Rome did not have freedom of speech as we understand it, only the sharpest satirists under particularly notorious rulers typically ended up losing their heads.
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