Series ・ 10 parts

The Advertising Century: Agencies and the Business of Desire

In the 19th century, as the new medium of the newspaper spread, a curious profession arose between the shop and the printed page: the 'agent.' Volney Palmer in the United States, the firm of Ayer that devised the open contract, and Japan's own road that began with the Edo-era hikifuda handbill. Episode 1 traces the origins of advertising and the advertising agency.

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01 The Birth of Advertising — Newspapers and the First Agents In the 19th century, as the new medium of the newspaper spread, a curious profession arose between the shop and the printed page: the 'agent.' Volney Palmer in the United States, the firm of Ayer that devised the open contract, and Japan's own road that began with the Edo-era hikifuda handbill. Episode 1 traces the origins of advertising and the advertising agency.
02 The Invention of the Brand — Mass Production and the Consumer Society In an age when factories churned out the same goods en masse, merchants tried to make their wares distinguishable by a 'name' and a 'mark.' The trademarks of Quaker Oats and Ivory soap, the rise of American agencies like JWT, and the early 20th century when advertising began to create demand itself. Episode 2 traces the story of the invention called the brand.
03 The Science of Persuasion — Psychology and Propaganda In the early twentieth century, advertising moved from 'telling' to 'moving.' Claude Hopkins sharpened his sales copy through testing, while Edward Bernays reached into the depths of the mind. Through these two men who tried to make persuasion a science, we trace the line between advertising and propaganda — its light and its shadow — in a neutral voice.
04 The Kingdom of the Airwaves — Radio and Television Commercials In the mid-twentieth century, advertising moved from paper to the airwaves. Sponsored radio programs, the serial dramas soap companies raised, the nine-second TV commercial, and a new currency called 'ratings.' We trace, in a neutral voice, the golden age when mass media and mass consumption joined hands — through both its prosperity and its shadow.
05 The Creative Revolution — Madison Avenue in the Sixties In 1959, a small New York agency placed a tiny car in the corner of a white page and added just two words. Volkswagen's 'Think Small' and Bill Bernbach. A fact-based portrait of the Madison Avenue revolution, when advertising transformed from the craft of persuasion into art and culture.
06 Dentsu, an Empire — The Singularity of Japanese-Style Advertising Beginning as a broker of newspaper advertising and growing vast alongside postwar television and radio, Dentsu. A neutral portrait of the structure of the Japanese-style advertising business, which runs by principles unlike those of Western agencies — examined through the practice of handling multiple firms in one industry, media buying, and the relationship with Hakuhodo, as a singularity of the model rather than a critique of any company.
07 The Age of Holding Companies — Acquisitions and Globalization In the 1980s, the advertising industry underwent a tectonic shift. WPP, which rose from a maker of shopping-basket parts to the world's largest; Omnicom, born from a three-way merger; and Paris-based Publicis — storied names bearing their founders' surnames were gradually bundled under giant holding companies.
08 The Digital Shock — Search, Programmatic, and Platforms The internet overturned advertising's common sense. Ads that respond to the words you search, programmatic buying in which machines win space in an instant, and two giants named Google and Meta. When an age arrived in which you could measure who was reached, the ground beneath the giant holding companies began quietly to shift.
09 Surveillance and Distrust — Data, Privacy, and Stealth Marketing The more precise advertising became, the more it turned into a gaze fixed on people. The Cambridge Analytica affair, ad fraud, criticism of stealth marketing, and the backlash of GDPR and stealth-marketing rules. We trace, neutrally and within what has been reported, where advertising now stands between convenience and surveillance.
10 The Future of Attention — Advertising from Here On Cookieless, influencers, retail media, and advertising generated by AI. Over the now-scarce attention of people, advertising is searching for its next form. At the end of a century-long story, we survey, without rushing to an answer, where the relationship between advertising and trust is headed.