Here is how we got from painted walls to AI answers. Every entry below was checked against museum, university, government or primary sources, and disputed details are noted.
Walls, marks and the printing press (ancient times to 1700)
Before AD 79
Pompeii's walls carried painted notices: thousands of election endorsements plus signs for rentals, shows and taverns (National Archaeological Museum of Naples; History Today).
AD 140 to 198
Roman producers stamped their names on amphora handles, an early maker's mark (Harvard Art Museums).
960 to 1127
China's Song dynasty: a needle shop's printing plate with a rabbit logo and sales copy, often called the oldest surviving printed ad (University of Washington).
About 1450
Gutenberg develops movable-type printing in Europe, making cheap handbills possible. Korea and China had movable type earlier (Britannica).
About 1476 to 1477
William Caxton prints a notice for a priests' handbook, the earliest surviving printed ad in English (University of Manchester Library).
1620s to 1658
English newsbooks start carrying notices; the first British tea ad runs in 1658 (Fitzwilliam Museum).
Newspapers and the first agencies (1700 to 1900)
1704
The Boston News-Letter runs the first paid newspaper ads in colonial America (Massachusetts Historical Society).
1729
Benjamin Franklin buys the Pennsylvania Gazette and makes ads easier to read with white space and varied type (Advertising Hall of Fame).
1800
James White founds R.F. White and Son in London, recognized as the first advertising agency (Guinness World Records; UK National Archives).
1841
Volney Palmer opens the first American ad agency in Philadelphia, a broker selling newspaper space (Smithsonian; Duke University Libraries).
1869
N.W. Ayer and Son is founded. Its open contract (1875 to 1876) has the agency work for the advertiser on a set commission (Smithsonian; Britannica).
1878
James Walter Thompson buys an agency and renames it J. Walter Thompson (Duke University Libraries).
1886
Coca-Cola goes on sale in Atlanta and runs its first newspaper ad (The Coca-Cola Company).
1888 to 1893
Richard Sears's mail-order catalog begins; Sears, Roebuck and Co. takes its name in 1893 (Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian; Smithsonian Magazine).
1891
Bill posters organize in Chicago, the start of today's out-of-home advertising association (OAAA).
Marketing becomes a discipline (1900 to 1967)
1902 to 1903
The first U.S. university marketing courses appear at Michigan, Illinois and California (ERIC).
1917
The American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A's) is founded with 111 charter agencies (4A's).
1937
The American Marketing Association is formed (Business History Conference).
1953 to 1964
Harvard's Neil Borden popularizes the "marketing mix" (EBSCO Research Starters).
1960
E. Jerome McCarthy condenses the mix into the 4 Ps: product, price, place, promotion (EBSCO Research Starters).
1967
Philip Kotler publishes Marketing Management, the standard business-school text (Kellogg School of Management).
1967
Lester Wunderman names "direct marketing" (Campaign).
Broadcast (1922 to 1970s)
August 28, 1922
WEAF in New York airs a paid 10-minute talk for a Queens apartment complex, widely treated as the first radio commercial. Earlier 1922 sponsorships are debated (NPR; Saturday Evening Post).
July 1, 1941
Bulova airs the first legal U.S. TV commercial on WNBT before a Dodgers game, for $9 (Television Academy; American Heritage).
The internet (1978 to 2006)
May 3, 1978
A DEC marketer emails about 400 ARPANET users about product demos, regarded as the first spam (Computer History Museum).
1994 to 1995
Yahoo starts as a Stanford web directory and incorporates (Britannica).
October 27, 1994
HotWired runs the first clickable banner ads, including AT&T's (Guinness World Records).
1998
Google is founded (Google).
October 2000
Google launches AdWords, a self-serve ad program, with about 350 advertisers (Google Ads blog).
February 2005
Google Maps launches in the U.S.; YouTube is founded the same month (Smithsonian Magazine).
2006 to 2007
YouTube introduces its first ad formats (Ad Age).
Social and mobile (2007 to 2021)
2007
Apple launches the iPhone; Facebook launches its ad platform in November (Apple Newsroom; Meta Newsroom).
November 2013
Instagram shows its first ad in the U.S. (TechCrunch).
June 2014
Google My Business launches (PCWorld).
June 2020
TikTok launches TikTok For Business (Tubefilter).
November 2021
Google My Business becomes Google Business Profile (Search Engine Land).
AI search (2022 to now)
November 30, 2022
OpenAI releases ChatGPT (OpenAI).
May 14, 2024
Google rolls out AI Overviews to everyone in the U.S. (Google).
February 9, 2026
OpenAI begins testing labeled ads in ChatGPT for U.S. free-tier users (OpenAI).
May 2026
Google reports more than 2.5 billion monthly AI Overviews users (Google).
What the timeline teaches
Every era rewarded the businesses that showed up early and measured what worked. Franklin cleaned up the newspaper ad, Ayer made agencies accountable to the advertiser, and AdWords let a small business pay only for attention it could track. AI search is the same kind of shift. We think it rewards the same habits: a clear brand, a strong website, real reviews and proof.
Myths we left out on purpose
- The "Hapu the weaver" Egyptian papyrus often called the first ad has no documented primary source (Pensar la Publicidad, Complutense University of Madrid).
- "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted" is only attributed to John Wanamaker, with no verified original (Quote Investigator).
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Sources
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- History Today · historytoday.com/archive/feature/how-win-election-ancient-rome
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- University of Washington · depts.washington.edu/chinaciv/graph/9commain.htm
- Britannica · britannica.com/topic/Gutenberg-Bible
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- 4A's · aaaa.org/blog/timeline-event/founds-4as
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