Shakespeare Gave a Meaning to Advertising That’s Hard to Grasp for AI

William Shakespeare by Martin Droeshout 1622 (or 1623)

It was William Shakespeare who coined the word advertising. And even if some malevolent purists prefer crediting its Latin root advertere—all agree that it is undoubtfully Shakespeare who gave the word the meaning and context that was adopted by the world we live in. The way the bard intended advertising was indeed much more than just drawing attention to something; Shakespeare gave it its fullest body and spirit. 

The term even included the idea of partnering as the Duke of Vienna wished to declare that he sided with the nun Isabella. There was an air of gallantry and mannerism that rhymes with the seductive elegance that the human brain may require to make it follow the seducer’s directions.

To strategize in communication and action to take the lead was included in this remarkable word. 

The Master Demonstrated the Art

And as coincidence is seldom an unexpected actor—advertising was William Shakespeare’s forte. As no other, he knew how to market his works and make the fruits of his pen the center of attention. Shakespeare was much more than a playwright. He was the entrepreneurial master of manifestation. And, of course, many will consider it as a sinful act to relate Shakespeare to the ghastly stream of ‘badvertising’ that continuously tortures our daily perception (while same time steering us to the call-to-action in dire need of a plumber). But there's more to it than the tell to sell.

The Campaign that Led to an Infinite Reign and Gold

More than a century before Shakespeare’s coinage, Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic monarchs, developed a campaign that reshaped the world—with a mainly illiterate population. 

They initiated a marketing mix that comprised consistent branding via heraldry, symbols, and coins (to name some of the ingredients), public proclamations and edicts, religious and other influencers, event marketing via processions and festivals, art sponsorship and commissioned architecture, and even deployed export marketing plans for which Columbus himself unleashed a world tour that ended sooner and eventually more golden than intended.

Wars of Competition

Although we marketing people think that we’re hot and on the edge of evolution, in essence, there’s nothing new. It’s one of the oldest industries in the world. Circumstances and climates change, but for every slogan ever written, there were numerous copycats around the corner and envious powers with soldiers, law firms, bullies, and others to threaten and attempt waging wars of competition against the victories of whoever was ahead. 

The printing press made us multiply, the tube and transistor made us amplify and distribute, social media gave man (and bot) individual platforms and AI may replace the jobs of numerous people in the campaign force.

The Tragedy

So, please look a little deeper into the Shakespearean tragedy that’s inevitably darkly dooming hidden in the brightness of every grand idea. Even the bard himself lead unintentionally to shooting his own Globe Theater on fire and laid his pen to rest. We people ruin what we created and again we rebuild or make the next generation(s) do the laborious job. If we ever succeed to repair the damage of industrialism, we also may repair the disasters that will be caused by inventing the bot tyrants that read our youth's resumes, decide on mortgage applications, and anytime soon audit our tax returns, and coordinate airstrikes, stock markets, and elections.

History taught us that we always can choose between traveling on foot or joining the bandwagon of progress on wheels, inevitably all ending in various wrecks at some point. Crossroads of wreckage where men and women with new ideas will advertise their answers that lead to new tomorrows. The art of persuasion is part of our human DNA, but style and form may differ widely. The first advertising person was probably a woman in the Garden of Eden or the prostitute whose sandals printed her language of seduction in the sand. 

We'll need to accept that advertising is an industry of continuous reinventing and reshaping because conformity is in many ways a threat to the attention-seeking nature of advertising. Every new idea dies when it becomes part of the furniture. Great advertising is the art of the exception. The new fantastic always wins over the established that have become ubiquitous and mundane. 

The Advertising Man and his Army of Bots (that Also Work for the Competition) 

At the turn of the 19th century, advertising management was led from inside the companies, by advertising men like Claude Hopkins. Later, in the highs of the agencies later in the 20th century it got fully outsourced, while nowadays big brands again have their own internal creative direction. Will tomorrow's advertising men, outnumbered by their armies of bots—that also work and spy for the competition—shape the landscape of the industry? Just like every model, it might rise and afterward replace itself. 

The Industry That's Only Partly Useful

And as long as there are people, we’ll be looking for answers that contain the very basic human characteristic—the perfect imperfection. Even if we mutate into hybrids that are half bot half-human, our human nature longs to get seduced by attempts that are perfectly... imperfect. Man and his insatiable hunger for what's partly real and partly an unfulfilled promise. Just like nature itself, advertising will remain the industry of imperfect attempts to lead you to the deed. Therefore advertising is by definition only partly useful, only partly efficient but fully needed to make us bear the fruits for tomorrow. 

To Buy or Not to Buy, That's the Question

We'll learn to live with the cyborg work environment in which the human factor will take the lead. Our focus: the consumer, the customer, the client remains a living specimen that is one of the most complex versions of the human being.

And because answering the crucial question 'To Buy or Not to Buy' has often little to do with logic. And foremost because the bottom-line outcome of the emotional gamble called advertising will be attributed to human honor, added to human capital, or paid for by human sacrifice.