CHAPTER XXVIII

A SHORT HISTORY OF COFFEE ADVERTISING

_Early coffee advertising--The first coffee advertisement in 1587 was frank propaganda for the legitimate use of coffee--The first printed advertisement in English--The first newspaper advertisement--Early advertisements in colonial America--Evolution of advertising--Package coffee advertising--Advertising to the trade--Advertising by means of newspapers, magazines, billboards, electric signs, motion pictures, demonstrations, and by samples--Advertising for retailers--Advertising by government propaganda--The Joint Coffee Trade publicity campaign in the United States--Coffee advertising efficiency_

In a work of this character the chapter on advertising must of necessity be in story form. It may tell what has been accomplished in advertising coffee, and perhaps point the way to greater achievement. In so far as possible, the story is supplemented by illustrations, which here tell the story even better than words.

Advertising to the trade or the consumer calls for expert advice. There are successful trade journalists who are competent to supply such advertising counsel; and new-comers in the field should consult them first. These men are in the best position to suggest the means for successful accomplishment. They know the men who are best qualified to render assistance for all media, and are glad to recommend those who can be most helpful.

Jarvis A. Wood has said that advertising is causing another to know, to remember, and to do. If we agree with this excellent definition, then the first coffee advertisers were the early physicians and writers who told their fellows something about the berry and the beverage made from it.

Rhazes and Avicenna told the story in Latin, and appear to have recommended a coffee decoction as a stomachic, as far back as the tenth century. Many other early physicians refer to it. Thus it was that coffee was solemnly introduced to the consumer as a medicine. The first step made by the berry from the cabinets of the curious, where it was known as an exotic seed, was into the apothecaries' shops, where it was sold and advertised as a drug. Next, the coffee drink was advertised and sold by lemonade venders; then by the proprietors of the coffee houses and cafés; and finally the coffee merchant sold and advertised the green and roasted bean.

Rauwolf told the Germans about it in 1582; Abd-al-Kâdir wrote his famous _Argument in favor of the legitimate use of coffee_ in Arabic about 1587; Alpini carried the news to Italy in 1592; English travelers wrote about the beverage in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; French Orientalists described it about the same time; and America learned about it long before the green beans were offered for sale in Boston in 1670.

Because of its frank propaganda character, Abd-al-Kâdir's manuscript may rightly be called the earliest advertisement for coffee. The author was a lawyer-theologian, a follower of Mahomet, and as such was eager to convince his contemporaries that coffee drinking was not incompatible with the prophet's law.

Soon the news of the day became the advertising of the morrow. In 1652 appeared the first printed advertisement for coffee in English. It was in the form of a shop-bill, or handbill, issued by Pasqua Rosée from the first London coffee house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill; and the original is preserved in the British Museum.

It is pictured on page 55,