Added Value ADVERTISING: Newspaper advertising has had a colourful history and today remains a strong platform for all marketing campaigns JOHN FANNING

Exactly 100 years before The Irish Times made its appearance, Dr Johnson proclaimed in characteristically definitive style that the trade of advertising was now so near to perfection that it couldn't be improved upon. He went on to state: "Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic. Promise, large promise is the soul of an Advertisement."

The good doctor was, of course, referring to press advertisements: the most civilised of the species. They don't, like radio or television commercials, make noisy interruptions just when you don't want. They don't despoil the environment as do outdoor posters or jump up and down like manic Jack-in-the-boxes as with those dreadful images on the internet. You can read and absorb newspaper ads at your leisure, and your own pace, or simply avert your gaze, if you feel so inclined.

By 1859, an emerging Irish middle class was ready for civilised advertising and a few "large promises". Department stores started to make an appearance in Dublin during the 1850s, prompted by the success of the Irish Industrial Exhibition in 1853. McSwiney, Delany and Co, later to become Clery's, opened on Sackville St in 1853 around the same time as Cannock, White and Co, later to become Arnott's.

The new retail outlets were referred to in derogatory terms as "monster houses" and their appearance prompted debates about consumer culture and the effects of what we would now call "globalisation". Although the Famine was a very recent memory, Dublin was prosperous, with growing redbrick suburbs in Rathgar, Rathmines and Dalkey. The new retail outlets needed the new suburbanites and they needed advertising to attract them, then as now. The Irish Times was to prove the ideal advertising medium, then as now.

The debate around the "monster houses" has very contemporary resonances. The smaller traditional retail outlets formed the Dublin Traders' Association to oppose them arguing that the new retailers only sold inferior goods, which they described as "slop productions" imported from England. Politicians jumped on the populist bandwagon: Isaac Butt criticised "the tyranny of capital in the shape of monster houses". Meanwhile, the Professor of Political Economics in Trinity College defended the new outlets for their greater economic efficiency and attention to customer service; and proclaimed them a symbol of modernity and a recognition of the superiority of free trade and laissez faire economics. Plus ça change …

The new retailers filled their ads with as many factual details about their wares as space would permit, indulging in occasional bouts of hyperbole, as is the advertiser's wont, but eager to fulfil the appetite of middle class Dublin for all the information they could find about the trickle of mass consumer goods that would soon become a flood.

There were only four pages in the first issue of the paper, two of which were devoted entirely to ads – the first two of course! It is a ratio of ads to editorial that would be much envied at regular intervals over the last 150 years, including today. Most of the early advertisers were retailers. Branded mass consumer goods didn't start making an impact until the turn of the century.

As the supply of goods increased and people began to take them for granted, retailers were forced to compete for readers' attention which is when display ads, larger sizes with more white space, started to appear. As competition increased in the 20th century, advertisers were forced to adopt more creative measures.

If you ever wondered how Ireland's legendary standing army of poets survived before the Arts Council appeared in mid-century you can stop wondering. During the first half of the 20th century Irish print advertising was awash with their best, and some of their worst efforts;

There are slogans and catch cries and mottoes and
wisecracks
unwanted they come unlamented they go
but some bear a message that makes them perennial
and ‘Purcell for Pipes' is the oldest I know.

Sometimes, like some of the obscure avant-garde efforts of today, the connection between the copy and the advertised product is not immediately obvious;

The past is far behind you
the future is just ahead/
step out with buoyant confidence/
Keep right – on Kennedy's Bread.

As today's retailers frantically search for words to attract attention and convey the sincerity of their bargain offers could they not take a leaf out of the admirably cool Mr John Sheil whose premises on Moore St and Manor St were celebrated in such splendid fashion:

I am the monarch of all I purvey
My value there's none to dispute
if you come for provisions today
Your taste and your pocket I'll suit
I have everything under the sun
For a feast or a plain simple meal
You'll get food that is second to none
From the One and the Only John Sheil .

But the apogee of verse advertisements was the long-running campaign for Odearest mattresses which started in the Saturday edition of The Irish Times in 1941 and ran for over a decade featuring a new ad every week which often involved a wry look at some current topic;

As onwards his capsule is hurled
this spaceman in comfort is curled
confirming once more
what was known long before
that Odearest is out of this world.

Another in this series featured an illustration of a smiling barman in an empty pub with an Odearest mattress on display behind him;

This barman is never exerted
because of a plan he unearthed
when ‘time gents' is due/ an Odearest's on view
and in no time the pub is deserted.

Today's media hotshots recommend that ads which are specially tailored to the personality and idiosyncrasy of a particular medium are likely to be more effective. The fact that this little insight has been known since the beginning of time, or at least since 1859, is neither here nor there, but it is highly relevant for a newspaper which has always prided itself on its unique blend of idiosyncrasies.

During the 1980s one of the most eagerly awaited Irish Times treats was a delightfully picky, and often bitchy, restaurant review column, Table for Two. Ballygowan mineral water had just been launched and although the advertising budget was minuscule, the agency (McConnells) recommended that, if the ads were confined to The Irish Times, there was enough in the kitty to run a small weekly ad beside the review column. The ads were headlined "Table Water for Two", and if the media selection was clever, the advertising copy was inspired; as you can see from the accompanying samples. Within a few months of the campaign Ballygowan had vanquished the French imposter versions to become brand leader; a position it still retains. Today's marketing managers please note:

Come all ye brand managers and list unto me
Now more than ever the Irish Times is where you
must be
With your brands in its pages
your job's guaranteed
In recessionary times that's a fine phil-os-o-fee.

John Fanning, a former managing director of McConnells advertising agency, is a member of The Irish Times board.