Editing Publicity (section)

==History==
[[File:Maggi_Arome_Pour_Corser_1895.png|thumb|right|150px|French advertising poster "Maggi arôme pour corser" by [[Firmin Bouisset]], circa 1895.]]
''Publicity'' originates from the French word {{lang|fr|publicité}} {{gloss|advertisement}}.<ref>{{cite web|title=Oxford Learner's Dictionary Entry|url=https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/publicity#:~:text=%2Fp%CA%8Cb%CB%88l%C9%AAs%C9%99ti%2F,by%20newspapers%2C%20television%2C%20etc.}}</ref> Publicity as a practice originates in the core of Paris, where shopping, tourism and the [[entertainment industry]] met commercialised [[print media]] and a burgeoning [[publishing industry]]. Among the urban society, scenes of consumption and new consumer identities were circulated through advertisement. [[La Maison Aubert]] shaped the emerging discipline of publicity. In early 19th century Paris, the advertisements and publicity campaigns for consumer items, such as [[Cashmere wool|cashmere]] shawls, and [[retailer]]s such as [[perfumeries]] soon attracted [[regulation]] on [[flyposting]].<ref>{{Cite book|title=Scenes of Parisian Modernity: Culture and Consumption in the Nineteenth Century |author= H Hazel Hahn| publisher=Springer|year=2009|isbn=9780230101937|pages= 8}}</ref>

19th century US companies included not only pro-sales messages in their publicity, but also explanations, demonstrations and exaggerations. [[Patent medicine]] and [[cosmetics]] manufacturers in the US frequently described or even showed consumers before and after the usage of the product. The [[Blair Corporation|Blair Manufacturing Company]] was among the US companies that advertised its products by comparing old-fashioned consumers who did not use the advertised product with the progressive customers who did. Before-after-changes became common in advertisement from 1910 onwards.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing |author= Pamela Walker Laird| publisher= JHU Press| year= 2001|isbn= 9780801866456| pages= 99}}</ref>
In the early 20th century, American [[Albert Lasker]], developed the used of advertising for appealing to consumers' psychology.<ref>Wolfgang Saxon, "Emerson Foote, 85, Who Headed Large Advertising Agencies, Dies", The New York Times</ref>

The contemporary economist [[Thorstein Veblen]] criticised the relative benefit of publicity. He argued that vendibility is not [[utility]], and that publicity had "no traceable relation to any benefit which the community may derive." Veblen estimated how much the publicity campaigns of companies added to the price consumers were paying. He argued that the publicity overhead for over-the-counter [[pharmaceutical]]s and cosmetics was more than half the retail price.<ref>{{Cite book|title= The Social Economics of Thorstein Veblen |author= David Reisman | publisher= Edward Elgar Publishing| year= 2012|isbn= 9780857932198 | pages= 148}}</ref>