history of marketing essay

The History of Marketing: An Exhaustive Timeline [INFOGRAPHIC]

Updated: July 28, 2017

Published: February 09, 2012

Ever since people have had something to sell, we’ve been marketing. But the effectiveness of those marketing methods have waxed and waned over thousands of years, and as consumers and their technologies advanced at a more and more rapid pace, marketers have had to change their game .

At one time, cutting edge technology was limited to just a small segment of the population – and these advancements were slowly rolled out to the masses over decades (and even centuries!). Now, adoption rates are faster than the speed of light and more widespread than ever – and it’s putting control back in the hands of consumers. It’s up to marketers to keep pace in this cluttered, fast-paced world if they want their message heard. Through the lens of marketing history, watch how marketers are succeeding. Take a look at how technology has changed the way marketers do their jobs , how consumers have responded (not always so favorably), and let us know where you think the future of marketing lies. As always, feel free to share and embed at your liesure!

What do you think the future of marketing holds?

(1) http://american-business.org/2595-magazine-industry.html (2) http://adage.com/article/ad-age-graphics/ad-age-a-history-marketing/142967/ (3) http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/tag/bulova/ (4) http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/03/us-radio-idUSTRE4B287U20081203 (5) http://information-marketing.net/BrandingAdvertisingMarketing/Traditional%20Advertising%20Revenues/MediaInRecession_BroadcastStumbles.pdf (6) http://www.startupnation.com/buyersguides/115/telemarketing-buyers-guide.htm (7) http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/news-brief/illustrated-history-apples-products-and-execu (8) http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/01/72496 (9) http://stateofthemedia.org/files/2011/05/2010_execsummary.pdf (10) http://business.highbeam.com/industry-reports/business/radio-television-publishers-advertising-representatives (11) http://www.internetworldstats.com/emarketing.htm (12) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=foSIInqb2ak (13) http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/analytics.html (14) http://www.quora.com/How-many-users-or-websites-are-using-Google-Analytics (15) http://www.webdesignerdepot.com/2011/03/a-brief-history-of-blogging/ (15) http://www.thestartuparena.com/dotcom-bubble-began/ (16) http://timelines.com/2000/3/10/dot-com-bubble-reaches-peak (17) http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/30495/25-Eye-Popping-Internet-Marketing-Statistics-for-2012.aspx#ixzz1lL5po4p3 (18) http://w3techs.com/technologies/details/ta-googleanalytics/all/all (19) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_mobile_phones (20) http://blogs.wsj.com/in-charge/2011/06/08/ban-on-yellow-pages-heads-to-court/ (21) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3078614/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/t/teens-tune-out-tv-log-instead/

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History of Marketing

Around 2.6 million years ago, humans started using tools, but all we could do was point and grunt if we wanted to tell others. Then after what must have been a frustrating 2.5 million years, we invented speech, and word of mouth marketing was born. This is the oldest and still the most influential form of marketing – word of mouth still influences 78% of purchase decisions – but we didn’t stop there. Fast forward 62,000 years and we learned to draw, which for the first time let us advertise without being there in person.

Writing came 34,500 years after, which gave us adcopy to go with our artwork. Ads were primarily propaganda, carved into prominent monuments, telling everyone how great our local ruler or god was. However there's plenty of evidence that businesses advertised and built brands as far back as antiquity. For example Scauras fish sauce, advertised in Pompeii, circa 35 B.C. (preserved in ash from the volcanic explosion), was well known throughout the Mediterranean at the time. Even Aristotle’s teaching on persuasion echoes the marketing funnel taught today: Exordium (Attention), Narratio (Interest), Confirmation (Desire), Peroratio (Action). The ancients knew how to advertise.

The invention of the printing press in 1450 changed the economics of publishing, making mass communication via print advertising economically viable. The cost of making copies came down so dramatically, that entire newspaper and magazine industries arose, funded through advertising alone. Now successful advertisements could be distributed more widely, we entered the era of mass communication, which only served to accelerate the rate of change.

Radio ads came next in 1895, which were more engaging, and still make up a significant share of advertising dollars today. Now we could hear speeches, recordings, music directly from the source, without needing it to compressed into lossy formats like text. This was an engaging format, but it was nothing compared to the advent of TV. Now we could not just hear but see for ourselves, a far better form of information transmission. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a video shows 24 frames per second.

Mass communication via TV, print, radio, upended entire industries. The economics of advertising meant that for the first time we could have national brands, and the ‘Golden Age of Advertising’ in the 1960s was when we really learned to build them. Corporate giants like Proctor & Gamble, Coca Cola, and Unilever consolidated power, using economies of scale to maximize profits, while reinvesting those profits into more advertising to increase scale. This advertising-industrial complex generated much of the economic growth we saw in the west, as advertising distributed new products, which in turn funded more advertising.

Finally the balance of power swung back towards decentralization with the growth of the Internet. Online marketing digitized everything, turning print into banner ads, classifieds into search, radio into podcasts, and TV into streaming video. Following Google’s lead, buying ads on these platforms were done self-service rather than through an agency, democratizing access and breaking the hold of the big advertising agencies. Social media networks arose to make everyone into their own publisher, eliminating gatekeepers and generating vastly more content to advertise against. Even small businesses could reach millions of people, without anyone’s permission.

Whenever we invent a breakthrough communications technology, advertising shortly follows, until the channel gets saturated – ruined by marketers – and early adopters move to the next shiny new thing. The first online banner ads had a click through rate of 78%, whereas today the average is 0.05%. This memetic Red Queen’s race requires marketers to innovate simply to stand still, as consumers become “banner blind” to our advertising, and we constantly test new messages to find something that gets noticed and resonates, eventually following the eyeballs to emerging channels.

What doesn’t change is our tolerance to ads. Despite all this change and progress, advertising has consistently hovered around 1% of GDP, implying a natural limit to our tolerance of ads, regardless of the channel. This is because our biological brains are not so different from what we had at the start of this story. Our memes might evolve faster with each new technology, but evolution happens over millions of years. As Churchill laments, “The brain of a modern man does not differ in essentials from that of the human beings who fought and loved here millions of years ago” .

About the Book 📕

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• DOI: 10.1080/0267257X.2014.929166
• Corpus ID: 54723179

Historical research in marketing theory and practice: a review essay

• M. Tadajewski , D.G. Brian Jones
• Published 1 September 2014
• History, Business
• Journal of Marketing Management

56 Citations

Marketing history from below: towards a paradigm shift in marketing historical research, speaking of research: oral history and marketing history, historical research in marketing: literature, knowledge, and disciplinary status, marketing challenges: a personal history, seeing the bigger picture: why market research history matters, promoting the consumer society: ernest dichter, the cold war and fbi, mapping the absence: a theological critique of posthumanist influences in marketing and consumer research.

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Three historical narratives on advertising self-control in Brazil

Marketing schools of thought and their present day relevance, marketing, the past and corporate heritage, 432 references, towards a history of critical marketing studies, an overview of the history of marketing thought, a history of historical research in marketing..

• Highly Influential

25 years of Psychology & Marketing: a multidimensional review

Expanding our understanding of marketing in society, the role played by the broadening of marketing movement in the history of marketing thought, a history of schools of marketing thought, scientific marketing management and the emergence of the ethical marketing concept, aldersonian marketing thought : an, related papers.

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1.4 Evolution of the Marketing Concept

Learning outcomes.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• 1 Describe the production concept.
• 2 Define the product concept.
• 3 Discuss the selling concept.
• 4 Explain the marketing concept.
• 5 Summarize the societal marketing concept and its features.

The Evolution of Marketing

So now you’ve gotten the bird’s-eye view of marketing as a practice, and you now know what marketing is. However, let’s take a trip back through time to look at the evolution of marketing practices and how many of today’s marketing strategies came to be. As you can see from Figure 1.9 , and to use an old TV commercial tagline, you’ve come a long way, baby!

The Production Concept

In order to understand the production concept, it’s important first to understand the history of technology and mass production. Spurred on by the use of steam power, the Industrial Revolution began in the United States by the middle of the 19th century. Although much of the population was still employed in agriculture, the expansion of commerce and industry drew millions of factory workers into cities and towns. Suddenly, an abundance of manufactured goods was available to households at a rate never experienced before.

The production concept assumed that consumers were mostly interested in product availability and price, not necessarily product features. As a result, companies concentrated on high production, low costs, and mass distribution. In other words, to use the oft-used line from the movie Field of Dreams , “If you build it, they will come.” People were so hungry for mass-produced goods that companies didn’t have to do a lot of sales or marketing. The production concept is thought to have lasted from just after the Civil War (1861–1865) until the 1920s. 35 For example, inventor Samuel Colt’s company began mass -producing revolvers in 1835. The Waltham Watch Company (founded in 1850 in Waltham, MA) was the first to use division of labor to mass produce watches and clocks.

The Product Concept

From the 1920s until the 1950s, the product concept dominated. With product availability a thing of the past, consumers began to favor products that offered quality, performance, and/or innovative features. As a result, companies concentrated on making superior products and improving them over time. One of the problems with this type of thinking is that marketers may fall in love with a product (known as “marketing myopia”) and may not realize what the market truly wants or needs. Consider the manner in which railroad marketers overlooked the growing competition from airlines, buses, and automobiles. In his book Marketing Myopia , author Theodore Levitt writes, “The railroads did not stop growing because the need for passenger and freight transportation declined. That grew. The railroads are in trouble today not because that need was filled by others (cars, trucks, airplanes and even telephones) but because it was not filled by the railroads themselves. They let others take customers away from them because they assumed themselves to be in the railroad business rather than in the transportation business.” 36

Link to Learning

The reckoning.

When American cars developed a reputation for not being reliable or dependable, this opened an opportunity for Toyota and other Japanese exporters in the late 1960s and 1970s. Learn more about this issue from David Halberstam’s 1986 book The Reckoning . Read the New York Times 1986 review of this book .

The Sales Concept

By the 1950s, mass production had become the norm rather than the exception. Competition had increased over the years, and there was little unfulfilled demand in the marketplace. Marketing evolved from simply producing products that customers wanted to trying to persuade customers to buy through advertising and personal selling. The basic premise of the sales concept was that consumers and businesses need to be “coaxed” into buying, and the aim of companies was to sell what they made rather than make what consumers wanted.

The Marketing Concept

The marketing concept was built on the premise that an organization will achieve its goals when it satisfies the needs and wants of the consumer. As a result, firms began to focus on customer needs before developing products, rather than developing products and then trying to “sell” them to consumers. The marketing concept was also the start of relationship marketing— fostering long-term relationships with customers in order to ensure repeat sales and achieve stable relationships and reduced costs.

The Societal Marketing Concept

In a nutshell, the societal marketing concept is simple. Companies make good marketing decisions by considering not only consumers’ wants and needs but additionally the balance between those wants and needs and the company’s capabilities and society’s long-term interests. The concept emphasizes the social responsibilities that companies bear. This means meeting consumers’ and businesses’ current needs while simultaneously being aware of the environmental impact of marketing decisions on future generations’ ability to meet their needs. 37

Knowledge Check

It’s time to check your knowledge on the concepts presented in this section. Refer to the Answer Key at the end of the book for feedback.

• the quality of the product a company intends to sell
• the operations of manufacturing the product a company intends to sell
• the selling strategies a company will use to sell the product
• the needs of the customer
• Production concept
• Marketing concept
• Societal marketing concept
• Sales concept
• Product concept
• Selling concept
• Production, product, sales, marketing, societal
• Product, sales, production, marketing, societal
• Marketing, production, sales, societal, product
• Societal, production, sales, marketing, product
• customers’ wants and needs were first identified as essential
• trustfulness, honesty, and transparency became most important
• promotional efforts to move inventory were essential
• the customer was the focus

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The Rise of Marketing

• Living reference work entry
• First Online: 14 February 2020
• Cite this living reference work entry

• Alex G. Gillett 5 &
• Kevin D. Tennent 5  

181 Accesses

Marketing and sales have existed in some form for centuries, but it was in the twentieth century that modern marketing management emerged as a distinct field of study and profession. This chapter narrates that development with reference to marketing practice, academic research, and education, to show how ideas about the scope of marketing broadened, particularly during the decades after World War II. In particular, this chapter examines the ideas from services and relationship marketing that first emerged during and before the 1980s.

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Gillett, A.G., Tennent, K.D. (2020). The Rise of Marketing. In: Muldoon, J., Gould, A., McMurray, A. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Management History. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62348-1_92-1

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Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

ISSN : 1755-750X

Article publication date: 10 July 2009

The purpose of this paper is to be more than a book review essay on the work by Tadajewski and Jones, The History of Marketing Thought . It reviews the literature on marketing history and thought, and includes suggestions for additional research on that topic.

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The research relies heavily on previously published articles and on databank searches.

A more complete time line of the history of marketing thought is presented. It is also shown that more biographical historical research is needed, especially on those pioneer practitioners of marketing whose legacy has influenced marketing thought and practice.

Practical implications

Knowing more about the history of marketing thought will prove useful both to academics and to practitioners. Biographies are also practical because we learn more about both the scholars and the times that have transformed this discipline.

Originality/value

The essay offers a brief but succinct summary of the history of marketing thought over millennia while at the same time reviewing a readings book on the topic.

• Marketing theory

Tamilia, R.D. (2009), "An overview of The History of Marketing Thought ", Journal of Historical Research in Marketing , Vol. 1 No. 2, pp. 346-360. https://doi.org/10.1108/17557500910974659

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The Evolution of Marketing (Infographic)

From single-celled sales sheets all the way up to complex ecosystems that rely on interdependent relationships among products, businesses and customers, the evolution of marketing is quite a tale.

It gets even more impressive when you think about the fact that this process of natural selection has only been going on for just a little over a century.

The Evolution of Marketing: A 120-Year History

While there are different schools of marketing thought in terms of the origin of the discipline and its various phases, the dawn of the 20th century is a good starting point for our purposes

Over the past 12 decades, marketing has gone from the simple act of informing potential consumers about the existence of a certain product to a complex web of interactions that take place in person, through print, over the airwaves and on social media.

What Is the Evolution of Marketing?

Marketing evolution refers to the distinct phases that businesses have gone through as they continued to seek new and innovative ways to achieve, maintain and increase revenue through customer sales and partnerships. Since the 1900s, a variety of different strategies have been employed as various industries created and refined their marketing approaches.

When Did the Marketing Discipline Begin?

The answer to this question is fairly nuanced. To get a rough sense of the origins of marketing, let’s turn to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The authors trace this term back to the 1560s, when it was used to describe “buying and selling, [the] act of transacting business in a market.” That’s a pretty literal definition, but it’s a good reminder that prior to the creation of marketing concepts, “marketing” still existed. It was just a pretty straightforward activity.

According to our dictionary, the first cited use of the word “marketing” in its modern business sense — the “process of moving goods from producer to consumer with [an] emphasis on advertising and sales” — comes from 1897.

While it took some time for the field to move from a product-centric approach to what we understand as a marketing orientation today, the roots of this discipline go back to the turn of the 20th century.

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What Causes Marketing To Evolve?

Two central factors drive marketing evolution:

• Marketing technology: When the field began, illustrated print advertising was one of the only feasible communication channels available to marketers besides in-store merchandising and in-person interactions. Today, digital marketing leverages technologies ranging from multimedia text messages to email and more.
• Customer needs: What do consumers demand today that they didn’t yesterday? What can they afford now that was beyond their reach in the past? If you can’t keep up with your audience, your competitors definitely will.

What Are the Different Stages in the Evolution of Marketing?

For our purposes, we’ll discuss four distinct phases of marketing evolution. While experts are somewhat divided in their interpretations of the various strategies that marketers have used to connect products with consumers and vice versa, we think these are the most important steps to study:

• Production orientation
• Sales orientation
• Marketing orientation
• Relationship orientation

The Production Era: Products Develop From the Primordial Soup

The Industrial Revolution set the stage for modern marketing. All of the right ingredients were amassed, resulting in marketing as we now know it: the promotion of mass-produced consumer products.

Accordingly, early marketing efforts assumed a production orientation. The working theory was that customers simply needed to be informed about what goods were available to them. After all, you can’t buy something if you don’t know it exists.

Henry Ford’s Model T

This approach is perhaps best summed up by a quote from Henry Ford : “If you have a really good thing, it will advertise itself.” The company’s approach was heavy on the text and highly informational, emphasizing price, quality and standardization.

In fact, the automaker was so focused on production that national advertising ceased entirely during periods of high demand. Though individual dealers continued to place local ads featuring nominal branding resources supplied by the company, Ford stopped advertising between 1917 and 1923.

A different marketing era was starting to take shape.

The Sales Era: Species Diverge and Brands Emerge in Marketing

Leveraging a production orientation is fine if you’re pretty much the only game in town. From the 1930s onward, though, it became increasingly rare that any company would permanently enjoy a competitor-free environment. So, in response to the pressures of natural selection, businesses developed unique adaptations. This resulted in two core innovations of modern marketing: the central importance of brand identities and an emphasis on the selling orientation.

A Very Coca-Cola Christmas

Would it be a stretch to say that the sales era gave us Santa Claus? Only a little bit.

In the 1920s, Coke realized something: The company wasn’t selling as much soda in the winter . A production-oriented approach like Henry Ford’s would have led to a decrease in advertising during colder months while reducing bottling.

Instead, Coca-Cola focused on driving sales by attaching their brand to Santa Claus. To make it work, marketers had to solidify an image of Santa that would appeal to consumers. In 1931, they found what they were looking for in the illustrations of Haddon Sundblom. Until 1964, Sundblom would continue to produce images in the iconic Santa style that we still know and love today.

The Marketing Era: Intelligent Adaptations Focus on Meeting Customer Needs

The development of a marketing orientation represented something of a sea change. While traditional marketing had focused on simply getting products to customers and convincing them to buy, this new approach was different. Marketers were driven to better understand consumers’ needs, concerns and desires. Only then could businesses hope to truly make an impact. By the 1980s, customers were in charge.

Apple Breaks Through

As a marketing concept, many internal stakeholders were skeptical of Apple’s 1984 Super Bowl commercial announcing the debut of the Macintosh personal computer. Watch Lee Clow discuss the origins of this groundbreaking ad with Bloomberg.

There’s a lot of creative insight to take away from this interview, but one thing definitely jumps out: They never even show a Mac. They don’t talk about any of its features. It’s not about getting you to buy a product. The entire commercial is centered on the premise that a new world is possible by taking a different approach to the adoption of technology — one that places individual consumers, not big companies, firmly at the center.

The Relationship Marketing Era: Customers and Businesses Coevolve To Create Cooperative Societies

Today, it’s common practice for many businesses to employ a relationship orientation to marketing. As a marketing concept, an approach that prioritizes relationships is focused on encouraging customer retention and loyalty as well as continued interaction with the brand. Digital marketing channels make it easy to deliver re-engagement incentives to consumers, and social media campaigns make brands highly accessible. Social responsibility can also be a cornerstone of this orientation, as brands strive to be perceived as a partner in the customer’s quest to create a more equitable society.

At REI, You’re a Member

Outdoor equipment and athletic outfitter REI operates on a co-op model where customers can become members. For a one-time fee, members have access to several perks, including the ability to shop at Garage Sales where steep discounts are available. This strategy facilitates serious brand loyalty.

Looking Ahead: The Future Evolution of Marketing

Evolution doesn’t just stop. In the future, new approaches to product, customer and brand positioning will lead to novel marketing approaches that form the next stage of the evolution in the field.

What Will Marketing Look Like in 2021?

As always, new technology and shifting customer needs will lead to new approaches in marketing. The continued adoption of augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) will allow savvy innovators to create increasingly immersive experiences.

The success of new social media platforms also highlights the importance of encouraging interaction among consumers. Instead of focusing solely on relationships between the business and its customers, companies will find new ways to participate constructively and collaboratively within a larger ecosystem led by consumers.

Do the Marketing Evolution

It’s been a stunning 120 years of marketing evolution. The next century will likely take us in directions that nobody can fully comprehend right now. One thing’s for certain: The fittest will survive.

Michael O'Neill

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Mike O'Neill is a writer, editor and content manager in Chicago. When he's not keeping a close eye on Brafton's editorial content, he's auditioning to narrate the next Ken Burns documentary. All buzzwords are his own.

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The history of marketing practice

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History Of Marketing

In the sass’s consumers began to get frustrated with prices, quality of products and the shortage of product information leading to the Consumer Movement”, helping the shift towards a different approach. The sass’s to sass’s, “Paradigm Shift” or Marketing Era was a turning point for marketing in which modern marketing emerged. The 1 ass’s represented a watershed for marketing as the mainstream debate became steeped In science (Egan 201 1), built on the mass marketing dominance and high growth In the US.

This brought a new line of thinking, marketers started to get involved with organizations at a strategic level and could inform them on what should be produced and how should it be communicated to consumers. During this time was growth within the field and its academic infrastructure, the Mama’s membership rose from 4000 In 1950 to 17,000 In 1980. As marketing thought developed It had more scientific Influence devoting more to the perspective of marketing manager. 1960); marketing management as analysis, planning, and control (Philip Kettle 1967) was all introduced in this era.

Attention mostly pushed towards Border’s (1954) marketing mix, this was 12 sections which marketers could input variables and see consumer’s different reactions. This got modified by McCarthy (1960) now known as the ups. It retained key elements from the functional school however shifted the respective towards the marketing management approach, this was used so businesses could apply the ups to gain influence over the market. Phillip Kettle cemented the turn to the managerial mainstream with the publication of his textbook.

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Essay on Marketing

Students are often asked to write an essay on Marketing in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Marketing

The world of marketing.

Marketing is about spreading the word on products and services. It helps companies connect with customers.

Understanding Customers

Creating products.

Using customer insights, businesses develop products that solve problems or bring joy.

Communication is Key

Marketing involves telling people about products through ads, social media, and more. Clear communication is crucial.

Building Brands

Adapting and growing.

Marketing strategies change based on feedback. Companies adapt to stay relevant and successful.

Marketing is like sharing stories that connect what people need with what companies offer. It’s an exciting way to make products part of our lives.

Also check:

250 Words Essay on Marketing

Understanding the power of marketing.

Marketing: a concept that shapes the modern world. It’s more than just ads and promotions; it’s the engine driving business success. Let’s explore its significance.

The Essence of Marketing

Segmentation and targeting.

Not everyone is interested in the same thing. That’s where segmentation comes in. It divides the vast market into smaller groups with similar traits. Then comes targeting – aiming your efforts at those segments most likely to respond positively.

Value Creation through Branding

Branding isn’t just a logo; it’s the emotions and perceptions associated with a product. Strong brands build trust and loyalty, allowing companies to command premium prices.

The Digital Revolution

The digital age has revolutionized marketing. Social media, search engines, and online ads allow for precision targeting and personalized communication. It’s not about bombarding, but about engaging.

Content is King

Analyzing and adapting.

Marketing isn’t a one-shot deal. It’s a constant process of analyzing results and adapting strategies. Tools like analytics help track what works and what doesn’t, leading to informed decisions.

Ethics in Marketing

The bottom line.

In a nutshell, marketing is the bridge that connects what you offer with those who need it. It’s not just about selling but about creating lasting value. Understanding its principles can propel businesses toward success in the modern world.

500 Words Essay on Marketing

Marketing: connecting the dots for successful business.

Marketing is like a magical thread that weaves businesses and customers together, creating a world where products and services find their perfect match. In this modern age, new-age techniques like Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR/AR), Chatbots and Conversational Marketing, Programmatic SEO , Social Commerce, and Neuromarketing have added exciting dimensions to this field. Let’s delve into the basics of marketing and explore how these techniques have transformed the way businesses reach out to us.

Imagine you’ve baked the most delicious cookies in town. You want everyone to know how tasty they are. That’s where marketing comes into play. Marketing involves all the activities that help you promote and sell your products or services. It’s about understanding what people want, creating something they’ll love, and then letting them know it exists.

Meeting New Friends: Customers and Businesses

In the world of marketing, two important players dance together: customers and businesses. Customers are people like you and me who need things. Businesses are the ones that make those things. Marketing helps these two groups find each other.

Traditional vs. Modern Marketing

Getting found: seo.

Think about searching for something online. How often do you go past the first page of search results? That’s why businesses use SEO. It’s like making sure your cookie recipe appears at the top when someone searches for “delicious cookies.” This technique helps businesses get noticed by improving their online visibility.

Understanding Your Brain: Neuromarketing

Ever wondered why some ads just stick in your head? Neuromarketing dives into how our brains respond to ads. Businesses use this technique to create ads that connect with us on a deeper level. It’s like making sure your cookie commercial triggers happy thoughts every time you see it.

Chatting with Businesses: Conversational Marketing

Have you ever had a chat with a robot on a website? That’s Conversational Marketing. Businesses use chatbots to talk to us, answer our questions, and even help us choose the right products. It’s like having a helpful assistant while shopping.

Shopping in Your Pajamas: Social Commerce

Putting it all together.

Marketing is like a puzzle where every piece matters. Businesses create amazing products, use modern techniques like VR/AR, Chatbots, Programmatic SEO, Social Commerce, and Neuromarketing to make us notice them, understand us better, and make shopping a breeze.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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Don't forget to add your  ORCiD ID during the submission process. It will be embedded in your published article, along with a link to the ORCiD registry allowing others to easily match you with your work.

Don’t have one yet? It only takes a few moments to register for a free ORCiD identifier .

Visit the ScholarOne support centre  for further help and guidance.

What you can expect next

You will receive an automated email from the journal editor, confirming your successful submission. It will provide you with a manuscript number, which will be used in all future correspondence about your submission. If you have any reason to suspect the confirmation email you receive might be fraudulent, please contact the journal editor in the first instance.

Post submission

Review and decision process.

Each submission is checked by the editor. At this stage, they may choose to decline or unsubmit your manuscript if it doesn’t fit the journal aims and scope, or they feel the language/manuscript quality is too low.

If they think it might be suitable for the publication, they will send it to at least two independent referees for double anonymous peer review.  Once these reviewers have provided their feedback, the editor may decide to accept your manuscript, request minor or major revisions, or decline your work.

While all journals work to different timescales, the goal is that the editor will inform you of their first decision within 60 days.

During this period, we will send you automated updates on the progress of your manuscript via our submission system, or you can log in to check on the current status of your paper.  Each time we contact you, we will quote the manuscript number you were given at the point of submission. If you receive an email that does not match these criteria, it could be fraudulent and we recommend you contact the journal editor in the first instance.

Manuscript transfer service

Emerald’s manuscript transfer service takes the pain out of the submission process if your manuscript doesn’t fit your initial journal choice. Our team of expert Editors from participating journals work together to identify alternative journals that better align with your research, ensuring your work finds the ideal publication home it deserves. Our dedicated team is committed to supporting authors like you in finding the right home for your research.

If a journal is participating in the manuscript transfer program, the Editor has the option to recommend your paper for transfer. If a transfer decision is made by the Editor, you will receive an email with the details of the recommended journal and the option to accept or reject the transfer. It’s always down to you as the author to decide if you’d like to accept. If you do accept, your paper and any reviewer reports will automatically be transferred to the recommended journals. Authors will then confirm resubmissions in the new journal’s ScholarOne system.

Our Manuscript Transfer Service page has more information on the process.

If your submission is accepted

Open access.

Once your paper is accepted, you will have the opportunity to indicate whether you would like to publish your paper via the gold open access route.

If you’ve chosen to publish gold open access, this is the point you will be asked to pay the APC (article processing charge).  This varies per journal and can be found on our APC price list or on the editorial system at the point of submission. Your article will be published with a Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 user licence , which outlines how readers can reuse your work.

For UK journal article authors - if you wish to submit your work accepted by Emerald to REF 2021, you must make a ‘closed deposit’ of your accepted manuscript to your respective institutional repository upon acceptance of your article. Articles accepted for publication after 1st April 2018 should be deposited as soon as possible, but no later than three months after the acceptance date. For further information and guidance, please refer to the REF 2021 website.

All accepted authors are sent an email with a link to a licence form.  This should be checked for accuracy, for example whether contact and affiliation details are up to date and your name is spelled correctly, and then returned to us electronically. If there is a reason why you can’t assign copyright to us, you should discuss this with your journal content editor. You will find their contact details on the editorial team section above.

Proofing and typesetting

Once we have received your completed licence form, the article will pass directly into the production process. We will carry out editorial checks, copyediting, and typesetting and then return proofs to you (if you are the corresponding author) for your review. This is your opportunity to correct any typographical errors, grammatical errors or incorrect author details. We can’t accept requests to rewrite texts at this stage.

When the page proofs are finalised, the fully typeset and proofed version of record is published online. This is referred to as the EarlyCite version. While an EarlyCite article has yet to be assigned to a volume or issue, it does have a digital object identifier (DOI) and is fully citable. It will be compiled into an issue according to the journal’s issue schedule, with papers being added by chronological date of publication.

How to share your paper

Visit our author rights page  to find out how you can reuse and share your work.

To find tips on increasing the visibility of your published paper, read about  how to promote your work .

Correcting inaccuracies in your published paper

Sometimes errors are made during the research, writing and publishing processes. When these issues arise, we have the option of withdrawing the paper or introducing a correction notice. Find out more about our  article withdrawal and correction policies .

Need to make a change to the author list? See our frequently asked questions (FAQs) below.

Frequently asked questions

• Dr Richard Hawkins University of Wolverhampton - UK [email protected]

Associate Editor

• Professor Brian Jones (History of Marketing Thought) Quinnipiac University - USA
• Professor Leighann Neilson Carleton University - Canada
• Jacqueline Reid Wachholz (Sources of Historical Research in Marketing) Duke University - USA
• Associate Professor Stefan Schwarzkopf (Consumption History) Copenhagen Business School - Denmark
• Professor Eric H Shaw (Forgotten Classics) Florida Atlantic University - USA
• Inger Stole (Advertising History) University of Illinois - USA
• Dr Mark Tadajewski (Exploration and Insights) University of York and Royal Holloway, University of London - UK
• Richard Whitfield [email protected]

Journal Editorial Office (For queries related to pre-acceptance)

• Sanjana Kuril Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Supplier Project Manager (For queries related to post-acceptance)

• Sagar Gaikwad Emerald Publishing [email protected]

Editorial Advisory Board

• Andrew Alexander University of Surrey - UK
• Nicholas Alexander Lancaster University - UK
• Fred Beard University of Oklahoma - USA
• Russell W. Belk Schulich School of Business, York University, Canada
• John Benson University of Wolverhampton - UK
• Hartmut Berghoff Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen - Germany
• Barry Boothman University of New Brunswick - Canada
• Blaine Branchik Quinnipiac University - USA
• Stephen Brown University of Ulster - UK
• Jason Chambers University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne - USA
• David Clampin Liverpool John Moores University - UK
• Robert Crawford Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology - Australia
• Peggy Cunningham Dalhousie University - Canada
• Daniele Dalli Università di Pisa - Italy
• Judy Foster Davis Eastern Michigan University - USA
• Tracey Deutsch University of Minnesota - USA
• Charles A. Ingene University of Oklahoma - USA
• Eminegul Karababa Middle East Technical University, Ankara - Turkey
• William Keep The College of New Jersey - USA
• Susie Khamis University of Technology Sydney - Australia
• Philip Kotler J. L. Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University - USA
• Jayne Krisjanous Victoria University of Wellington - New Zealand
• William Lazer Florida Atlantic University - USA
• Jan Logemann Institut für Wirtschafts- und Sozialgeschichte - Germany
• Pauline Maclaran Royal Holloway, University of London - UK
• Md. Tarique Newaz University of Wisconsin - Green Bay - USA
• Ross Petty Babson College - USA
• Richard Pollay University of British Columbia - Canada
• Thomas Powers University of Alabama at Birmingham - USA
• Andrew Pressey University of Birmingham - UK
• Daniel Robinson University of Western Ontario - Canada
• Ronald Savitt University of Vermont - USA
• Jonathan Schroeder Rochester Institute of Technology - USA
• Stanley J Shapiro Simon Fraser University - Canada
• Jagdish N Sheth Emory University - USA
• Robert Tamilia Retired - Canada
• Rohit Varman Indian Institute of Management Calcutta - India
• William Wilkie University of Notre Dame - USA
• Ian F Wilkinson The University of Sydney - Australia
• Terrence Witkowski California State University, Long Beach - USA
• Ben Wooliscroft University of Otago - New Zealand
• Teresa da Silva Lopes University of York - UK

CiteScore 2023

Further information

CiteScore is a simple way of measuring the citation impact of sources, such as journals.

Calculating the CiteScore is based on the number of citations to documents (articles, reviews, conference papers, book chapters, and data papers) by a journal over four years, divided by the number of the same document types indexed in Scopus and published in those same four years.

For more information and methodology visit the Scopus definition

CiteScore Tracker 2024

(updated monthly)

CiteScore Tracker is calculated in the same way as CiteScore, but for the current year rather than previous, complete years.

The CiteScore Tracker calculation is updated every month, as a current indication of a title's performance.

2022 Impact Factor

The Journal Impact Factor is published each year by Clarivate Analytics. It is a measure of the number of times an average paper in a particular journal is cited during the preceding two years.

For more information and methodology see Clarivate Analytics

5-year Impact Factor (2022)

A base of five years may be more appropriate for journals in certain fields because the body of citations may not be large enough to make reasonable comparisons, or it may take longer than two years to publish and distribute leading to a longer period before others cite the work.

Actual value is intentionally only displayed for the most recent year. Earlier values are available in the Journal Citation Reports from Clarivate Analytics .

Time to first decision

Time to first decision , expressed in days, the "first decision" occurs when the journal’s editorial team reviews the peer reviewers’ comments and recommendations. Based on this feedback, they decide whether to accept, reject, or request revisions for the manuscript.

Data is taken from submissions between 1st January 2024 and 30th April 2024

Acceptance rate

The acceptance rate is a measurement of how many manuscripts a journal accepts for publication compared to the total number of manuscripts submitted expressed as a percentage %

Data is taken from submissions between 1st January 2024 and 30th April 2024.

This journal is abstracted and indexed by

• The Publication Forum (Finland)
• Emerging Sources Citation Index (Clarivate Analytics)
• ReadCube Discover
• Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List - B ranking
• Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS, UK) Academic Journal Guide

This journal is ranked by:

• FMS Journal Rating Guide (D)

Reviewer information

Peer review process.

This journal engages in a double-anonymous peer review process, which strives to match the expertise of a reviewer with the submitted manuscript. Reviews are completed with evidence of thoughtful engagement with the manuscript, provide constructive feedback, and add value to the overall knowledge and information presented in the manuscript.

The mission of the peer review process is to achieve excellence and rigour in scholarly publications and research.

Our vision is to give voice to professionals in the subject area who contribute unique and diverse scholarly perspectives to the field.

The journal values diverse perspectives from the field and reviewers who provide critical, constructive, and respectful feedback to authors. Reviewers come from a variety of organizations, careers, and backgrounds from around the world.

All invitations to review, abstracts, manuscripts, and reviews should be kept confidential. Reviewers must not share their review or information about the review process with anyone without the agreement of the editors and authors involved, even after publication. This also applies to other reviewers’ “comments to author” which are shared with you on decision.

Resources to guide you through the review process

Discover practical tips and guidance on all aspects of peer review in our reviewers' section. See how being a reviewer could benefit your career, and discover what's involved in shaping a review.

More reviewer information

Calls for papers

Selling beauty: historical perspectives on the marketing of cosmetics and makeup.

Submit your paper here! Introduction Throughout history, women have been expected to discipline and reshape their bodies in accordance with expec...

Marketing and Retailing Clothing and Fashion – the Long View

Submit your paper here! Introduction The modern fashion industry is built on successful marketing and branding, from haute couture houses to high...

Thank you to the 2022 Reviewers of Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2022 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

Thank you to the 2021 Reviewers of Journal of Historical Research in Marketing

The publishing and editorial teams would like to thank the following, for their invaluable service as 2021 reviewers for this journal. We are very grateful for the contributions made. With their help, the journal has been able to publish such high...

Literati awards

  Journal of Historical Research in Marketing - Literati Award Winners 2022 

We are pleased to announce our 2022 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Commercialising public health...

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing - Literati Award Winners 2021

We are pleased to announce our 2021 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Advertising food to Australia...

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing - Literati Award Winners 2020

We are pleased to announce our 2020 Literati Award winners. Outstanding Paper Selling the consumer: the marketing of advertising sp...

Journal of Historical Research in Marketing is the only quarterly, peer-reviewed journal publishing high quality, original, academic research that focuses entirely on marketing history and the history of marketing thought.

Aims and scope

The essence of an historical perspective is a thorough, systematic, critical awareness of the changes (or continuity) in events over time and of the context in which change or continuity occurs.

In addition to regular full-length research articles, the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing (JHRM) occasionally features material under the following sections. Explorations & Insights includes invited commentaries about marketing history and the history of marketing thought. These tend to be shorter (three to six thousand words) than the full articles that run in each issue.  Sources of Historical Research in Marketing includes short essays introducing unexplored and novel archives and other primary historical resources, their contents and relevance to marketing history.  Archivists or library professionals who believe their collections might be of interest to marketing historians are invited to submit essays to contribute to this section. JHRM also invites historical review essays that focus on historically important marketing books under the section Forgotten Classics.  

Marketing history broadly defined including advertising, retailing, channels of distribution, product design and branding, pricing strategies, market research, and consumption behaviour.

History of marketing thought including the histories of marketing ideas, concepts, theories, and schools of marketing thought including the lives and times of marketing thinkers both academic and practitioner.

Latest articles

These are the latest articles published in this journal (Last updated: May 2024)

The promotion of Spanish travel agencies from the 20th century to the present

Declining demand in the antiques market: insights from an online community, marketing via shangbangs (chinese business networks), top downloaded articles.

These are the most downloaded articles over the last 12 months for this journal (Last updated: May 2024)

"Welcome to pure food city": tracing discourses of health in the promotional publications of the Postum Cereal Company, 1920-1925

The role of the state in consumer culture: the case of "operation vin" in sweden., social network sites and competition: a tale of youtube, 2005-2015.

These are the top cited articles for this journal, from the last 12 months according to Crossref (Last updated: May 2024)

Twitter Killed the Media Star: A Historical Evolution of Marketing Communication used by Spanish Universities

Tout casse, tout passe, tout lasse; et tout se remplace: resurrecting declining brands by leveraging brand-pastness, related journals.

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This journal is aligned with our responsible management goal

We aim to champion researchers, practitioners, policymakers and organisations who share our goals of contributing to a more ethical, responsible and sustainable way of working.

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A Short History of Cell Biology

Our journey to understanding that single cells are the fundamental units of life traces back to groundbreaking scientific milestones, such as the invention of the microscope, which revealed individual cells, and advancements like the discovery of fluorescent proteins and electron microscopes that have enriched our insights into the intricate structure and function of cells. Dive into a short history of cell biology.

Published October 9, 2023

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The defining feature of cell theory is that single cells are the fundamental unit of life and can exist alone or combine to form multicellular organisms. The history of cell biology and the formation of cell theory involved several key developments and discoveries, including the invention of the compound microscope in 1595, the visualization of cells in cork by Robert Hooke in 1655, and the visualization of live cells under the microscope by Anton van Leeuwenhoek in 1674.

In modern cell biology, we know that single cells are the fundamental unit of life and can exist as single cells (unicellular organisms) or combine to form multicellular organisms. But how did we reach this understanding? Let’s dive into a short history of cell biology. 

A Quick Refresher on the Structure of Cells

Before we get started on the history of cell biology, let’s have a quick refresher on the basic structure of individual cells.

Cells come in various types, from prokaryotic cells, such as bacteria and archaea, to eukaryotic plant and animal cells. Within these groups, there are further distinct cell types, such as red blood cells, neurons, and epithelial cells.

These distinct cell types vary in their structures, depending on their cell specialization. However, cell membranes are a defining feature of cells. These are required to maintain a fixed environment within the cell. They regulate the movement of chemicals across the membrane both in and out of the cell.

Most cells also contain genetic material in the form of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). In eukaryotes, DNA is stored within a subcellular compartment known as the nucleus.

In prokaryotes, there are no intracellular membranes, and the DNA is located in the cytoplasm. Some types of cells with specific functions lack DNA, such as mature red blood cells. Figure 1 shows the general structure of prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. 

Cell Theory

The cell theory, or cell doctrine, states that all organisms are composed of similar basic units of organization called cells. The concept was formally articulated in 1839 by Schleiden & Schwann and has remained as the foundation of modern biology. The idea predates other great paradigms of biology, including Darwin’s theory of evolution (1859), Mendel’s laws of inheritance (1865), and the establishment of comparative biochemistry (1940).

First Cells Seen in Cork

While the invention of the telescope made the Cosmos accessible to human observation, the light microscope opened up smaller worlds, showing what living forms were composed of. The cell was first discovered and named by Robert Hooke in 1665. He remarked that it looked strangely similar to cellula or small rooms which monks inhabited, thus deriving the name.

However, what Robert Hooke actually saw was the dead cell walls of plant cells (cork) as they appeared under the microscope. Hooke’s description of these cells was published in Micrographia . The cell walls observed by Hooke did not indicate the nucleus and other organelles found in most living cells .

The first man to witness a live cell under a microscope was Anton van Leeuwenhoek , who, in 1674, described the algae Spirogyra. Van Leeuwenhoek probably also saw bacteria.

Formulation of the Cell Theory

In 1838, Theodor Schwann and Matthias Jakob Schleiden were enjoying after-dinner coffee and talking about their studies on cells. It has been suggested that when Schwann heard Matthias Schleiden describe plant cells with nuclei, he was struck by the similarity of these plant cells to animal cells he had observed in tissues.

The two scientists went immediately to Schwann’s lab to look at his slides. Schwann published his book on animal and plant cells (Schwann 1839) the next year, a treatise devoid of acknowledgments of anyone else’s contribution, including that of Schleiden (1838). He summarized his observations into three conclusions about cells:

• The cell is the fundamental unit of structure, physiology, and organization in living things.
• The cell retains a dual existence as a distinct entity and a building block in the construction of organisms.
• Cells form by free-cell formation, similar to the formation of crystals (spontaneous generation).

We know today that the first two tenets are correct, but the third is clearly wrong. The correct interpretation of cell formation by division was finally promoted by others and formally enunciated in Rudolph Virchow’s powerful dictum, Omnis cellula e cellula ,: “All cells only arise from pre-existing cells”.

Modern Cell Theory

• All known living things are made up of cells.
• The cell is the structural & functional unit of all living things.
• All cells come from pre-existing cells by division. (Spontaneous Generation does not occur).
• Cells contain hereditary information, which is passed from cell to cell during cell division.
• All cells are basically the same in chemical composition.
• All energy flow (metabolism & biochemistry) of life occurs within cells.

As with the rapid growth of molecular biology in the mid-20th century , cell biology research exploded in the 1950s. It became possible to maintain, grow, and manipulate cells outside of living organisms .

The first continuous cell line to be so cultured was in 1951 by George Otto Gey and coworkers, derived from cervical cancer cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, who died from her cancer in 1951. The cell line, which was eventually referred to as HeLa cells , has been the watershed in studying cell biology in the way that the structure of DNA was the significant breakthrough of molecular biology.

In an avalanche of progress in the study of cells, the coming decade included the characterization of the minimal media requirements for cells and the development of sterile cell culture techniques. It was also aided by the prior advances in electron microscopy, and later advances such as the development of transfection methods, the discovery of green fluorescent protein in jellyfish, and the discovery of small interfering RNA (siRNA), among others.

The study of the structure and function of cells continues today in a branch of biology known as cytology. Advances in equipment, including cytology microscopes and reagents, have allowed this field to progress, particularly in the clinical setting.

The History of Cell Biology Timeline

Below is a timeline of some of the key events in the development of cell theory and cell biology. 

1595 – Jansen is credited with the first compound microscope. 1655 – Hooke described ‘cells’ in cork. 1674 – Leeuwenhoek discovered protozoa. He saw bacteria some nine years later. 1833 – Brown described the cell nucleus in cells of the orchid. 1838 – Schleiden and Schwann proposed cell theory. 1840 – Albrecht von Roelliker realized that sperm cells and egg cells are also cells. 1856 – N. Pringsheim observed how a sperm cell penetrated an egg cell. 1858 – Rudolf Virchow (physician, pathologist, and anthropologist) expounds his famous conclusion: omnis cellula e cellula , that is, cells develop only from existing cells (cells come from preexisting cells). 1857 – Kolliker described mitochondria. 1879 – Flemming described chromosome behavior during mitosis. 1883 – Germ cells are haploid, chromosome theory of heredity. 1898 – Golgi described the Golgi apparatus. 1938 – Behrens used differential centrifugation to separate nuclei from cytoplasm. 1939 – Siemens produced the first commercial transmission electron microscope. 1952 – Gey and coworkers established a continuous human cell line. 1955 – Eagle systematically defined the nutritional needs of animal cells in culture. 1957 – Meselson, Stahl, and Vinograd developed density gradient centrifugation in cesium chloride solutions for separating nucleic acids. 1965 – Ham introduced a defined serum-free medium. Cambridge Instruments produced the first commercial scanning electron microscope. 1976 – Sato and colleagues publish papers showing that different cell lines require different mixtures of hormones and growth factors in serum-free media. 1981 – Transgenic mice and fruit flies are produced. Mouse embryonic stem cell line established. 1995 – Tsien identifies a mutant of GFP with enhanced spectral properties. 1998 – Mice are cloned from somatic cells. 1999 – Hamilton and Baulcombe discovered siRNA as part of post-transcriptional gene silencing (PTGS) in plants. 2006 – Factors required to create induced pluripotent stem cells are identified, allowing stem cells to be created from differentiated cells. 2009 – Single-cell sequencing makes its debut, allowing insight into transcriptomics at the resolution of individual cells. 

2009 – First paper published using organoids derived from a single adult stem cell. 2012 – CRISPR gene editing is developed, allowing precise RNA-targetted genome engineering.

A History of Cell Biology Summarized

In the history of cell biology, there have been many individual scientific discoveries and technological developments, from the invention of the microscope, allowing us to see individual cells, to the discovery of fluorescent proteins and the invention of powerful electron microscopes, allowing us to study the function and structure of cells in greater detail.

Nowadays, the availability of microscopes means that most people can now see cells for themselves. Read our article on how to turn a mobile phone into a simple microscope to appreciate how accessible the cellular world is.

Originally published November 2007. Reviewed and updated October 2023.

Further Reading on the History of Cell Biology

• Landmark Papers in Cell Biology : Selected Research Articles Celebrating Forty Years of The American Society for Cell Biology. 2000. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.
• Mazzarello P. A unifying concept: the history of cell theory. Nat Cell Biol. 1999. 1(1):E13-5.

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