Evolution Of Marketing From 1960 To What We Know Today [Infographic]

Social media and marketing go hand in hand. Whether you are marketing your personal brand, your business, or no brand at all, you are still making a name for yourself in social media. Depending on how you look at it, I could argue that it’s all marketing. Yesterday I wrote an article about the History Of Social Media. I was surprised to learn that social media started evolving back in 1969. How does marketing compare to that? When did the evolution of marketing begin?

According to this infographic called Evolution Of Marketing Data by infogroup, marketing started almost a decade before social media. When you think about all the direct mail that used to be stuffed into our mailboxes, it makes sense that it all began before social media started.

According to this, the beginnings of direct mail started in 1960. It was untargeted and unsophisticated. In 1963, zip codes were introduced in the United States, and after that, advertisers in that region were able to start being more targeted, and they put a strategy behind the direct mail. Around 1979 and 1980, computers entered the marketing scene, and the evolution of marketing took a tech twist on the road which eventually leads to where we are today.

There are two main differences that really stand out to me in the evolution of marketing. First, back in the old days, the companies had all the control and power. These days, the consumers are in the driver’s seat. Since social media and online feedback is in such a public focus, brands have no choice but to either cater to their customers or get a bad reputation (or no reputation at all if they don’t have an online presence).

The second major change that stands out to me is in the marketer. Marketing these days has to be creative and exceptional to stand out. Marketers have to be part artist and part scientist. They have to be able to use their right brain and their left brain. I wrote about this in an article called This Is What A Modern Marketing Professional Looks Like. I hope you like this timeline!