What was...

We are all drenched and soaked in the endless world of Advertising. Each new day dawns with a new concept, a new idea, a new way of pushing the advertising industry to the next level. We are so much engrossed and addicted with “What’s next?” that we have either forgotten or have failed to think about “What was?”

Our past is our teacher and in this blog, BrandWagon wishes to take you down the memory lane to some important and forgotten happenings of the past. Turning back the pages of history of the book called - “Advertising” till we reach the page titled, “What was…”

1704

The first newspaper advertisement, an announcement seeking a buyer for an Oyster Bay, Long Island, estate, is published in the Boston News-Letter.

18th Century

Ads appear for the first time in print in Hickey's Bengal Gazette. India's first newspaper (weekly).

5th June 1883

Horlicks becomes the first 'malted milk' to be patented.

1905

B Dattaram & Co claims to be the oldest existing Indian agency in 
Girgaum in Bombay 

1912

ITC (then Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd.) launches Gold Flake 

1920s

- Enter the first foreign owned ad agencies 

- Gujarat Advertising and Indian Advertising set up 

1931

- National Advertising Service Pr. Ltd. Bombay set up 

- Universal Publicity Co, Calcutta formed 

1934

Venkatrao Sista opens Sista Advertising and Publicity Services as first 
full service Indian agency 

1936

Indian Broadcasting Company becomes All India Radio (AIR) 

1939

Lever's advertising department launches Dalda - the first major 
example of a brand and a marketing campaign specifically developed 
for India 

1945

Tom & Bay (Advertising) Pr. Ltd., Poona begins operations in India 

1950s

Radio Ceylon and Radio Goa become the media option 

1962

India's television's first soap opera - Teesra Rasta enthralls 
viewers 

1967

First commercial appears on Vividh Bharati 

1978

First television commercial seen

1982

- The biggest milestone in television was the Asiad '82 when 
television turned to colour transmission 

- Bombay Dyeing becomes the first colour TV ad 

1990

- Marks the beginning of new medium Internet 

- Agencies open new media shops; go virtual with websites and 
Internet advertising 

1993

India's only advertising school, MICA (Mudra Institute of 
Communications Ahmedabad), is born

2000

Mudra launches magindia.com - India's first advertising and marketing 
Gallery

2001

Bharti's Rs 2.75-crore corporate TV commercial, where a baby 
girl is born in a football stadium, becomes the most expensive 
campaign of the year