A Brief History of Advertising With Promotional Calendars

Calendar advertising has a wealthy history dating back to the 1850's when The Ketterlinus Lithographic Manufacturing Co. of Philadelphia started printing calendars that contained advertising. Promotional wall calendars became even a lot more well-known as printing technologies enhanced. In 1878, Andrew and Jacob Geiger opened a printing shop in Newark, NJ and started printing advertising calendars, fans, posters and other paper ephemera.

Calendar advertising became increasingly preferred in the late 1880's, thanks to the efforts of two enterprising Ohio newspapermen, Jasper Freemont Meek and his competitor, Henry Beach. They had been fierce competitors, and in between them, they figured out how to place advertisements on a myriad of products from aprons, hats and a wide selection of household things. They even invented the classic metal trays advertising colas, which are now prized by antique collectors.

Two extra newspapermen, Thomas Murphy and Edward Burke Osborne, each of Red Oak, IA, are credited with inventing art calendars that became immensely well-liked in the late 1880's. Like Jasper Meek and Henry Beach, they required new business to maintain their presses busy and bring in much more sales. Osborne printed a watercolor of the new Red Oak courthouse on cardboard, printed advertising about the painting and additional a calendar pad. It was a large achievement.

Till then, no one had believed to put appealing art on calendars. The two men bought fine photographs and paintings from a wide variety of artists and enhanced their printing capabilities to contain three-color printing. By 1894, Murphy and Osborne employed a total of 94 folks, such as 14 traveling salesmen and printed an estimated 3 million calendars.

At the end of 1894, Murphy sold his interest in the business to Osborne, who moved the enterprise to Newark, NJ to be closer to art and business centers in the New York metropolitan locations. Osborne then seized upon a new printing technologies - letterpress printing - to create calendars of the highest top quality. The resulting results of these calendars permitted him to set up printing plants in Toronto, London and Sydney, Australia.

Given that then, promotional calendars have continued to develop in recognition as a promotional product. Right now, imprinted promotional calendars continue to be ranked between the 3 major product groups in the promotional things business.

John J. Robinson is a advertising consultant with specialties in print advertising and promotional items.