A PROPHET OF MODERN ADVERTISING - GERMANY KNIES,KARL

The analysis of advertising propounded by the German economist Karl Kn ies in 1857 was a milestone in the development of advertising thought. Knies was the only economic thinker to treat advertising seriously an d positively at a time when it first began to take on its modern inten sity and pervasiveness; his contemporaries either ignored it or judged it by its excesses, (e.g, tawdry patent medicine ads). Knies perceive d the increasingly important information role that advertising was to play in economic life, as expanding markets made person-to-person inte raction impractical. Explaining how it played that role, he identified the basic themes of subsequent advertising research: the communicatio n process, analysis of advertising effects and buyer psychology, targe t audience selection, and media analysis. After being neglected initia lly, Knies' work eventually had great impact on German advertising tho ught, but has remained unknown in the United States. The saga of Knies ' analysis is a rich illustration of advertising's intellectual histor y.