7 From The History of Advertising

A man in old Greece who had a good pair of legs and a strong voice had a chance of employment in the advertising business. The shopkeepers of long ago discovered that they sold more if they called attention to their goods, and this was especially true. Shop was not in one of the busiest streets and would not be easily noticed. Those tradesmen, therefore, sometimes employed a crier to walk through the city, calling out news that certain goods were for sale in a certain shop. The same custom has gone on for thousands of years and has not yet died out.

But even in early days it was not only the human voice that was used in advertising. It is believed that signboards were used three or four thousand years ago in China, Egypt, Greece and Home. The shoemaker's sign, for example, was a picture of the god of love holding a pair of ladies' shoes. Such signs were useful because they could be understood even by those who were unable to read.

Besides their signboards, those old tradesmen used trade cards, which could be handed to people in a town. They were pieces of paper giving information about shops and goods. In the days before people could read, these "cards" used signs and pictures instead of words.

Questions:

1. What kind of a job could a man with a strong voice get in old Greece?

2. What did the shopkeepers in old Greece discover?

3. Why did tradesmen employ a crier?

4. What other kinds of advertising were used in early days?

5. How were trade cards used by old tradesmen?

8 How much is job worth?

One of the most difficult questions to answer is how much a job is worth. We naturally expect that a doctor's salary will be higher than a bus conductor's salary. But the question becomes much more difficult to answer when we compare, for example, a miner with an engineer, or an unskilled man working in an oil field with a teacher in a high school. What the doctor, the engineer and the teacher have in common is that they have spent several years of their living studying in order to get the neces­sary training for their professions. We feel that this training and these years, when they were studying instead of earning money, should be rewarded. At the same time we recognize that the work of the miner and the worker in an oil field is both hard and dangerous, and that they must be highly paid for the risks that they take.

Another factor we must take into consideration is how socially useful a man's work is, regardless of the talents he may bring to it. Most people would agree that looking after the sick or teaching children is more important than selling used cars or improving the taste of toothpaste. Yet it is almost certain that the used-car salesman earns more than the nurse, and the research chemist earns more than the schoolteacher.

Although the amount of money that people earn is largely decided by market forces, this should not prevent us from looking for some way to decide what is the right pay for the job.

Questions:

1. Why is it so difficult to answer the question "How much a job is worth?"

2. Why should doctors and teachers get high salaries?

3. Why must the miner and the worker in an oil field be highly paid?

4. What social factors must be taken into consideration when people are paid for their work?

5. Do you think that all people get the right salary?