s discovered their ability to produce far exceeded the ability of the local markets to consume (Kaufman, 1987, p. 12). However, many of these early posters reflect the failure of the business and scholarly establishment to define a marketing concept. For example, a poster for "Mr. Suchard's Chocolat" consisted of nothing more than three children holding boxes of his chocolates. Apparently, he expected that his name along would induce people to buy his brand (Kaufman, 1987, p. 13).
Marketing Practices by Business Type
Marketing practices and the development of specific advertising strategies occurred during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Before such time, the traditional method of merchandising consisted of a manufacturer who sold his products to the retailer through a middleman or wholesaler. The wholesaler thus had a great deal of power to determine what goods were bought and sold depending on what inventory he chose to stock. The similarities in the evolution of marketing practices in the large-scale industries such as the steel industry and the smaller-scale industries such as the pharmaceutical industry demonstrates the shift in marketing thought during the nineteenth century.
Specifically, both industries shared the experiences that led to the gradual replacement of the independent middleman with manufacturer-owned distribution organizations. This change occurred despite the steel industry's continuing to focus on its market as a whole rather than attempting to target specific and individual consumers and the pharmaceutical industry's decision to target specific consumers. The decline of the middleman as a result of national brand advertising led the way into the more individualized consumer-oriented marketing and advertising practices that would characterize the twentieth century.
The nineteenth-century experience of firms in the metal industry was typical of many industries that manufactured or ...