They ad to be joking!

Nov 19 2008 By Jessica Thomas

Bed wetting advert

Advertising is a good tool for historians hoping to gauge changing lives and customs over the decades.

And during the last 150 years, what has been sold in the pages of the Chronicle,and how, has altered quite significantly.

In the first few decades of publication adverts took up the front and back pages, while advertisers were mainly local traders whose announcements consisted of tiny blocks of type,with no variety on type face,colour or layout.

There were ads for every conceivable ailment, including one for bed-wetting which entices the reader with claims that the problem can be cured without drugs or medicines.

By the late 1920s and early 1930s, consumerism was in full swing, with large handdrawn ads for products such as Nestlé baby milk and those announcing sales at the big stores dotting the pages.

These ads, although still relatively innocent and naive,show the first signs of companies becoming more cunning when it comes to their sales technique, with women seemingly the main targets for advertisers.

One example shows electricity being marketed as the 'secret to successful cooking', while another markets a 'health restoring' wine with one satisfied customer claiming she drinks a glass two or three times a day to 'get rid of that weary,fagged-out feeling'. She continues that it's 'exactly the thing we women need to help us along'.

We also see the first signs of recycling initiatives during the Second World War, with appeals from the Chronicle for people to bring their old newspapers, books and waste paper to our offices, while big department stores like Bentalls in Kingston were even advertising second-hand furniture.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and most adverts show advances in the industry.

Unlike those in the early years of advertising, text is kept to a minimum and pictures and a few attention-grabbing words are all that's needed to attract the reader.