10 advertising media marketing tools that today's marketers don't even recognize by name

Ten advertising media, ten stories, or an unconventional walk through the Secret Museum of Marketing.

I have been dealing with marketing and advertising history for twenty-five years. Lately, I have been thinking more and more about how much knowledge has quietly faded away while the industry rushed forward. Nostalgia is not what drives me – I know very well that digital tools are irreversibly better in many ways. But I also know that the principles on which the old tools operated have not become obsolete at all. It's just that no one teaches them anymore.

This article is a walk through the secret museum of marketing. Ten objects, ten stories – and behind each one, a truth worth remembering today.

 

1. The town crier and the itinerant trader – from the Middle Ages to the 1900s

The oldest influencer did not live on Instagram, but stood in the marketplace and shouted at the top of his lungs. The town crier – or in English town crier, and barker – was the original form of the brand ambassador.

The successful town crier did exactly what today's content marketers do: he informed while entertaining. He told jokes, recited poems, demonstrated the product – and sold it in the process. The criers at large fairs and festivals were paid well because they knew what many forget: people do not buy the product, but the performance.

 

2. The advertising stamp – from the 1880s to about the 1940s 

A advertising stamp – is a refined and now almost completely forgotten genre. These were printed, lickable, or self-adhesive paper stamps that were deceptively similar to postal stamps, issued by companies and affixed to the envelope alongside – or instead of, as decorative elements – the regular postal stamp. They were made with custom graphics, slogans, and seasonal messages, and of course, the brand name was also on them. The most demanding examples were designed by renowned illustrators, and certain series were collected by people just like real postal stamps.

The golden age of advertising stamps lasted from the 1890s until World War I, but some companies used them all the way until the late 1940s. Larger factories, pharmacies, and department stores regularly issued their own series – with festive, patriotic, or humorous motifs – especially in Germany and France. This way, the envelope could be transformed into a real mini-gallery, conveying a message to the recipient even before it was opened.

At the end of the 19th century, when postal traffic was the backbone of B2B communication, a letter equipped with a well-designed advertising stamp conveyed the same prestige as a sleek brand identity does today. Large department stores, insurance companies, and pharmaceutical firms literally turned every touchpoint into an advertising surface – and they did this for free, since the letter had to be sent anyway.

 

3. The tally card – 1900s – 1980s

A tally sheet  it was a colorful and practical tool – an early type of everyday advertising print.  Essentially, they replaced the machine cash register receipt: merchants and hospitality workers used these „glued in the head,” tear-off slips to tally items and provide the total amount due. Merchants handed them to customers so they could write down the products they wanted to buy and the prices. The graphic solutions of the tally sheets competed for attention, so they often commissioned renowned artists to design them – they were the first applied graphic designers.

The golden age of tally sheets fell between the two world wars. The tally sheet was not just an advertising medium – it actively assisted in consumer decision-making while also ensuring brand presence. One tool, two functions.

 

4. Neon advertising – 1910s – 1990s

In 1910, French inventor Georges Claude introduced the first neon tube light advertisement in Paris. In 1923 (according to other sources, in 1925), the first American neon advertisement painted the streets of Los Angeles: a two-part, blue-red sign made at the request of a Packard car dealership – and passersby literally stopped in the street to stare.

A neon advertising it was not just a type of sign: it brought a visual revolution. The nighttime cityscape was previously dominated by silence and darkness – neon created nighttime commerce. Bars, cinemas, hotels, and shops suddenly came alive even when the sun went down. The light itself was the message: we are open, we exist, we matter.

By the 1980s, neon culture had become so saturated that it lost its exclusivity – and then came LED, which was cheaper, more durable, but much less soulful.

 

5. The newspaper coupon – 1890s – early 2000s

In the 1890s, Asa Candler, an early owner and distributor of Coca-Cola, employed one of the first known coupon strategies: he promised a free drink to anyone who redeemed the coupon appearing in the newspapers. The method proved so effective that by the end of the 1890s, a significant portion of Americans had already tasted Coca-Cola – largely thanks to this tool.

The newspaper coupon brilliantly combined three things at once: measurability, activity, and media presence. Advertisers knew exactly which newspaper had the most redeemed coupons that week – this was 19th-century conversion tracking. The consumer did not passively receive the advertisement but did something for it: cut it out, saved it, brought it to the store. This commitment was no longer attention – it was intention.

Coupon culture peaked in the 1950s and 70s: American housewives regularly combed through Sunday supplements each week, carefully cutting out and organizing coupons. (Just for perspective: some estimates suggest that in the 1990s, over 80 billion coupons were printed annually in the USA – of which about 4-5 billion were redeemed).

 

6. The advertising verse – 1900s – 1980s

Before the jingle was invented, copywriters employed an even older weapon: the advertising verse. Not metaphorically – real, rhymed, rhythmic stanzas that were placed on posters, newspaper ads, company signs, and shop windows, which people – just like folk songs – memorized involuntarily and passed on.

The genre's golden age fell between the two world wars and the following decades. In Budapest, it reached quite special heights. As a legacy of the Monarchy, the capital had a strong tradition of witty, humorous street culture – and merchants exploited this. A good advertising verse not only conveyed information: it gave personality to the brand and provided entertainment for which people were almost grateful to the advertiser.

One of the prides of Budapest's urban folklore is the Royal furniture advertising verse, which has remained memorable across generations – not on the radio, not on television, but solely through the power of words. The little verse – whose exact wording has somewhat varied in popular memory over the decades – went something like this: „Royal furniture, Royal chest, best on a Royal bed...”

It is a fact that it was memorable... It became so ingrained in public consciousness that decades later it resurfaced when someone wanted to buy furniture – or just to reminisce.

The power of the advertising verse lay in what modern neuromarketing is only now scientifically proving: rhythm and rhyme are the most effective memory retention tools. Our brains store musical patterns more deeply than prose. What you once put into verse is hard to forget.

 

7. The branded promotional gift – 1950s – 1980s

„Merch” (promotional merchandise) grew into a huge industry by the mid-20th century. Most companies typically branded cheap, everyday items as promotional gifts, which they gave to wholesalers, partners, and clients to increase brand awareness. The true stars of the era were branded lighters, ashtrays, coasters, wall calendars, and of course, pens.

The shortage economy of socialism was good for creativity: many promotional gifts were created and produced by the employees of the respective company. A prime example is the Bakony Works in Veszprém, where they made a steel bottle opener shaped like a spark plug as a promotional gift. as a promotional gift. Since it was also difficult to obtain everyday items, these branded objects were highly valued and even collected.

The Marketing Secret Museum has an almost infinite number of branded gift item types: just think of branded glass cups, paper schedules, advertising postcards, calendar cards.

The principle is brilliantly simple: give people something they use daily, and your brand will come to their mind every day. A good lighter serves its owner for years. An interesting and colorful wall calendar dominated the office walls for twelve months.

 

8. Packaging materials and advertising bags – 1920s – 1980s

Before the paper bag became a premium branding tool, merchants used a much simpler solution: logoed packaging. The butcher shop's paper, the bakery's napkin, the shoe store's box – all were carriers of the brand's visual identity – just as the branded nylon bag would be a few decades later.

These tools are interesting because they turned a mandatory function into marketing: the product had to be packaged in something anyway. Why not make that „something” an advertising surface?

The renaissance of branded packaging coincided with the flourishing of American consumer culture: in the 1950s and 60s, packaging became an independent art form.

In our country, colorful and branded advertising bags were introduced from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. Soon they moved into households and became essential items with the characteristic colors and logos of Skála-Coop, Centrum Stores, or S-Model – these were status symbols in socialist Hungary, just like the Bloomingdale's paper bag in the West.

 

9. The branded matchbox – 1880s – 1980s

If you wanted to find the perfect advertising surface in the 19th century, you had to ask: what is the object that every person picks up at least once a day? The answer was for a while without a book: the matchbox.

The branded matchbox became a conscious marketing tool from the 1880s, first in Sweden and England, then quickly spreading to Central Europe as well. The mechanism was simple: match factories provided boxes cheaply or for free to restaurants, cafés, and hotels – in exchange, the sponsor company's logo, slogan, or illustration decorated the outer cover. Everyone won: the restaurateur got free matches, and the advertiser gained a million-copy, pocket-traveling advertising surface.

In Hungary, the genre has created a particularly rich tradition. The cafés of Lipótváros, the thermal baths of Buda, and the hotels next to the Eastern Railway Station all had their own carefully designed matchboxes. The best specimens are now collected – phillumenia, or matchbox collecting, has become a serious hobby worldwide.

The matchbox also served as one of the first conscious advertising tools for series collecting. series collecting Some companies released thematic series – animals, cities, athletes – which people consciously collected, thus engaging with the brand repeatedly over months.

 

10. The tram poster – 1890s – 1980s

And finally, an advertising medium that was based on the smartest media planning logic – just a hundred years ago. When the horse-drawn tram and later the tram became widespread in the big cities in the 1890s, transportation companies quickly realized: passengers sit, wait, and have nowhere to look. This is a premium advertising medium.

The tram poster – a long paper strip stretched above head height inside the car, or a larger board fixed on the outside – quickly became one of the most reliable tools of urban mass marketing. In Budapest, pharmacies, department stores, insurance companies, and holiday resorts regularly advertised on it as early as the 1900s. Bathing at Lake Balaton and the dentist on Károly Street traveled on the same tram on the busy lines of the capital.

The uniqueness of the medium was the forced attention: the passenger could not fast-forward, could not close it, could not scroll down. It was there, at eye level, from stop to stop. A good tram poster learned from poster art – designed by the era's renowned graphic artists – because they knew: what we see as beautiful, we look at. What we look at, we remember.

 

Closing thought

If you read through this list, something stands out: no single advertising medium or method has truly ceased to exist. It has only transformed. The letter-sealing stamp became an email signature. The town crier became an influencer. The coupon became a promotional code.

Marketing is not a new science – it is the eternal game of winning and retaining human attention. Those who only know today's tools understand only half of the game.

The other half can be found in grandma's attic.

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