Short answers, pulled from the story.
A copper printing plate from the Song dynasty era in ancient China is considered the world's earliest identified printed advertising medium. It produced square paper sheets bearing a rabbit logo and the name of Jinan Liu's Fine Needle Shop.
British pharmaceutical firm Beechams created the world's first advertising slogan in August 1859 for Beecham's Pills: "Worth a guinea a box." The phrase was reportedly uttered by a satisfied customer from St Helens, Lancashire, the founder's hometown.
Thomas J. Barratt of London, who worked for the Pears soap company and became its brand manager in 1865, has been called the father of modern advertising by T.F.G. Coates. Albert Lasker, born in 1880, also holds the same title and defined advertising as "salesmanship in print, driven by a reason why."
A thirty-second advertising slot at the 2025 Super Bowl cost US$8 million. The game attracted an audience of over 123 million viewers.
Digital advertising captured 59.4 percent of global ad spending in 2024, making it the dominant medium. Television came second at 24.9 percent, followed by out-of-home at 5.2 percent, radio at 4.5 percent, newspapers at 3.5 percent, magazines at 2.2 percent, and cinema at 0.4 percent.
Edward Bernays, a nephew of Sigmund Freud, is sometimes called the founder of modern advertising and public relations. He argued that selling to unconscious desires was far more effective than appealing to rational minds, and he was hired by tobacco companies to create positive associations with cigarette smoking using these psychological techniques.