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Advertising is a business of monetizing attention

· 2 min read

Advertisements are everywhere nowadays in the society of consumption. Although the ways of advertising have changed quite a lot over the past century, the incentives stay the same behind the scene: drawing attention and trying to sell.

Selling Attention​

Dating back to the early eighteenth century, most of the ads were just informational instead of being persuasive. This situation did not change until Benjamin Day launched his own newspaper in 1833. In order to obtain a large audience, he set the price at a penny while rivals sold at six cents per copy. The loss was inevitable. However, he began to invite businesses to publish ads in his newspaper with an exposure fee. As a result, the newspaper became phenomenal. Because of Benjamin Day, the world started to realize the value of selling the attention of the audience.

Methodical Advertising​

Advertising became more methodical at the beginning of the 20th century, and it was considered as a science. People start to use advertisements specifically for grabing attention. Demand engineering was one of these scientific approaches. It advertised a problem that was never recognized, or sometimes totally fabricated at first, and then claimed the solution of using a certain product. Advertisers of the 1920s also realized that a good reputation could be engineered as well by creating and publicizing a brand.

Forms of Advertising​

The main focus of advertising was in public space before the 1920s. Things changed afterward. Radio advertising became very popular, and advertisers were willing to sponsor the radio content, and hear their names being mentioned during the broadcast, which could draw immediate attention from a large audience. However, the role that radio played in advertising was soon replaced by television, which turned out to be a much more effective way of attracting attention till now.

The emergence of the Internet brought another round of ad revolution, during which emails showed up as a new form of advertising. A survey in 1973 found emails comprised 75 percent of all network traffic. Email is very effective because it rewards people. Receiving an email makes people feel good. Search engines such as Google also become significant sources to harvest lots of attention from users. In order to monetize the attention, the Googlers employed an advertising tool called Adwords to display relevant ads to users based on what they are searching for, along with the results.

Advertising is a Business of Monetizing Attention

· 2 min read

In today's consumerist society, advertising is ubiquitous. Although the forms of advertising have changed significantly over the past century, its ultimate goal remains the same: to capture the public's attention and successfully sell products.

Selling Attention​

In the early 18th century, most advertisements were merely informative and did not aim for eye-catching effects. This began to change when Benjamin Day launched his own newspaper in 1833. To attract more readers, he priced his newspaper at one cent while his competitors charged six cents. With the newspaper's success, losses were inevitable. To increase profits and reduce losses, Benjamin started inviting advertisers to place ads in his newspaper and charged them for it. Ultimately, his publication achieved great success, making the world gradually aware of the value of selling attention.

Advertising Methodology​

By the 20th century, advertising began to take shape as a systematic field and was regarded as a science. An advertisement could be crafted to grab attention. Creating demand is one of many scientific methods. This method involves heavily promoting a problem that the public is either unaware of or that is entirely fabricated, and then claiming that a certain product can solve this problem. Additionally, advertisers in the 1920s realized that word of mouth could also be shaped by establishing and popularizing a brand.

Forms of Advertising​

Before the 1920s, advertising was primarily focused on public spaces. However, shortly thereafter, radio advertising became extremely popular. Advertisers were eager to sponsor radio content just to hear their names mentioned during broadcasts—because this would immediately attract a large audience's attention. Later, television quickly replaced radio as the dominant medium for advertising, becoming a more effective way to capture attention, a trend that continues to this day.

The rise of the internet ushered in a new wave of advertising revolution, with email emerging as a new form of advertising. A survey in 1973 showed that emails accounted for 75% of traffic on the internet. Emails are highly effective because they feel like a reward or incentive for customers—receiving an email feels good. Meanwhile, search engines like Google gradually became important resources for capturing user attention. To monetize attention, Google's founders introduced the Adwords advertising tool: it displays relevant ads alongside search results based on user queries.

About Tian Pan

Solutions architect and tech entrepreneur specializing in enterprise SaaS and Web3 platforms. Led development of high-throughput distributed systems handling millions of transactions. Full-stack expertise with a track record of architecting cloud-native solutions that scale seamlessly from startup to enterprise scale.

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