Patent medicine advertising pioneered modern advertising techniques

Evidence

Yet patent medicine’s most important influence was not on medicine but on advertising. As the industry grew, its pressing advertising needs drew many of the nation’s most creative and talented copywriters, who would come up with some of modern advertising’s most important techniques. It was also through the sale of patent medicine that advertising first proved conclusively its real utility, as a kind of alchemy, an apparently magical means of transforming basically useless substances into commercial gold. — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 88

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the history of advertising’s early dependence on questionable mass-market products — echoes themes from the reader’s existing work on attention industries and how dubious commerce drove promotional innovation. — connects to: Advertising techniques originated in the 1800s but matured institutionally in the 1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 1219; Patent medicine marketing techniques still dominate modern consumer advertising — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 98; Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24
• ADDENDUM: Directly relevant to ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ in that both trace how commercial manipulation of desire and image drove broader cultural marketing shifts.

Broader Connections

• Patent medicine marketing techniques still dominate modern consumer advertising #corroborates (0.85) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 98
• Mass-scale attention harvesting began with advertising in the 1890s-1920s #expands (0.75) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 24