Marketing Theory

I have a theory. I strongly think that marketing or advertising started when bars started to flourish. My belief is that being in bars brings you back to where it all started. The facts on which I based my theory started to come out when I was in college.

When I was a freshman, I was one of those who, just like any college freshman, wanted to go out to the world, and live the real life. I enrolled in a middle class college and I found how it is like to be a “college boy.”

On my very first night, me and my roommates went out to a local bar to drink some beer and see the sights. The bartender gave us our beer in custom printed promotional cups. Imprinted on it was a popular brand of beer. I thought it was nothing. But when I ordered another round for the group, they gave us custom logo promotional cups. This time the cups were bigger, and the brand logo was right in our faces that you will never forget what the brand looks like.

Subtle, yet very effective, those custom promotional cups products really made a mark in me. To this day, I can vividly describe what the cup or the logo looked like, which to my mind were brilliant promotional gimmickry.

Advertising started with bars and pubs. All the brilliant ad agency executives in history were sure to have been in college, therefore all of them went to bars, ergo, all their ideas were formed in bars. Brilliant, isn’t it?