Reading. 11 Form. Variant 2

Read the text. Match the sentences a-f to the gaps 1-5. There is one extra sentence.

a Early adverts in newspapers usually promoted books, newspapers and medicine.

b Therefore, shopkeepers used images - a boot for a shoe shop, a book for a book shop and so on - to advertise themselves.

c This type of advertising is new and exciting and makes people want to buy the product or idea.

d They’re on TV and the radio, in newspapers and magazines, online and even in films.

e The trend is towards making advertising more and more personal, targeting the individual rather than a group.

f However, it began much, much earlier than that.

The history of advertising

These days adverts are everywhere. 1_____   It’s hard to imagine a world without advertising but when did advertising begin?

Most people imagine advertising started with the arrival of the mass media in the twentieth century. 2_____   Adverts painted on walls or rocks have existed for thousands of years - examples have been found in India dating back to 4000 bc. In fact, this form of advertising is still used today in many parts of Asia, Africa and South America. A little later, the Ancient Egyptians used papyrus* to make sales posters and lost-and-found adverts on papyrus were common in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome.

During the Middle Ages, most people couldn’t read. 3_____   These images are similar to logos used today, except that today logos are used to identify a particular brand rather than a type of shop. Fruit and vegetables were sold in the town square and the sellers used town criers to announce their goods. These town criers were people who walked about and shouted loudly telling people what was available.

However, it was after the first newspapers appeared in the seventeenth century that advertising really began as a business. 4_____   Then in 1836 a French newspaper included paid advertising for the first time - anyone could pay and advertise any product. Other newspapers quickly copied the idea. As a result of the increased demand for adverts, the first advertising agencies began. The first opened in 1869 in Philadelphia in the US. Today there are over 50,000 advertising agencies in America alone!

In the twentieth century, the invention of television had a huge impact on advertising. By the 1960s advertising had become much more creative and the idea of the slogan was born. Not long after, the jingle followed. Since then, advertising has become much more sophisticated. Advertisers use a variety of techniques to get people to remember their products. Advertising campaigns are usually aimed at a target audience. 5____   _For example, we now get adverts in response to online searches, we receive adverts on our mobile phones and so on. Perhaps in the future all advertising will be individual or perhaps it will change completely. One thing is certain: we can be sure that advertising will continue to exist.

* papyrus = an early form of paper made from plants

Read the text again. Write True, False or write (?) if there is no information.

1 The Ancient Egyptians used advertising a lot. ⬜  

Read the text again. Write True, False or write (?) if there is no information.

2 You can find adverts painted on walls nowadays in some parts of the world. ⬜