La Publicité Recycle l’Histoire in Paris

The Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris is exhibiting ‘La Publicité Recylcle l’Histoire’ until the 28th of August. The Museum investigates the manipulation that advertising design makes through the use of history and the historical characters during the 20th century, and for that they’ve selected files and films from the collection of the museum which are presented in interesting formats.

The Museum has prepared an interesting programme for young people of in between 18 and 25 years old in a nocturnal timetable. For children in between 7 and 10 years old they’ve prepared the programme History Figures and Advertising Stars, where they’ll be able to entertain themselves with amusing games and advertising objects creations with great historical characters.

Despite one thinking that advertising is not even two centuries old, history tells us that the Egyptians already worked with precarious forms of advertising on papyrus paper that today are property of the British Museum in London. The papyrus was a warning that requested information for a runaway slave, offering a reward for who brought him back to its owner.

 

Maybe it was precarious but it had all the elements that the most simple of adverts requires, which is a warning. Ancient Greece wasn’t far behind. In 480 BC propagandistic means appeared which promoted the laws of Solon in the altarpieces that were axons, which maybe were the predecessors of political advertising.

In Rome the first billboards appeared, which consisted in enormous boards that were used to keep the officials informed in a permanent way, which were known as ‘alba’. Also, there were the ‘Libelli’ which are known as posters today and that had the same purpose: selling slaves, selling objects, house renting, promoting shows, etc.

That way and to the extent that commerce transformed itself into a fundamental economic activity, advertising followed its course. The birth of print would mark the limit of modern advertising. In 1711 the owner of The Spectator newspaper discovered that selling warnings increased the income and allowed the growth of printing, opening an important space to advertising that, with time, has transformed into a fundamental source of economic sustainment of the media.

Barcelona Spain

original source here