FROM SMOKE SIGNALS AND PIGEONS TO AI AND FREE STREAMING. TELECOMMUNICATIONS HAVE SHAPED THE WORLD AND SOCIETY SINCE TIME IMMEMORIAL

17 May is the date dedicated annually to World Telecommunication and Information Society Day under the auspices of the International Telecommunication Union. You may ask why something like this should be celebrated at all, but the answer is obvious. The world today is the way it is because of telecommunications, which of course has its downsides, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. You still don’t believe it? Then remember how far telecommunications have come over the ages. But you have to start many hundreds of years before Christ...

In the beginning, there was the carrier pigeon... although not exactly. The tradition of using telecommunications goes back even further, to prehistory, when people primarily used smoke signals and communication drums instead of today’s televisions and internet. At that time, Europe was still lagging behind the rest of the world, so we can consider China, Africa, and North America the cradle of interpersonal communication. However, these ancient channels of telecommunication were generally only used for war purposes - in most cases to signal to the allies that enemy camps were in dangerous proximity.

Video: Talking drums performance

As time went on, more and more sophisticated lifehacks began to appear. In the sixth century BC, the Persians came up with the carrier pigeons, while the Greeks used a unique hydraulic semaphore system less than a century later. But a breakthrough occurred no sooner than in 1774 when the Swiss physicist Georges Lesage built the first electrostatic telegraph, marking the first milestone in the history of modern telecommunications. Others followed close behind - the French engineer Claude Chappe first connected Paris to Lille with a telegraph network, then extended the line to Strasbourg. His colleague Abraham Edelcrantz did the same in Sweden, connecting Stockholm with Drottningholm.



In the future, telecommunications were to become primarily the domain of the Western world...

Hello, who’s speaking?

The first fully functional static electricity telegraph was built by the Englishman Francis Ronalds in 1816. However, the father of the real telegraph revolution must be sought across the Atlantic Ocean. Samuel Morse’s imprint on telecommunications history is unquestionable - after all, it was this American who introduced the world to an instrument that was not only capable of transmitting sounds from one end of a line to the other but also of transforming them into a system of lines and dots recorded on paper. The first such transmission took place in January 1844 over a roughly sixty-kilometer line between Washington, D.C. and Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Morse code was to become the principal long-distance means of communication for the next several decades. The first underwater telegraph line was stretched between the European and American shores of the Atlantic not long after, in 1866.



In the 1870s, another of the founding fathers of modern telecommunications entered the scene. In 1878 and 1879, telephone services were first commercially operated in New Haven, Connecticut, and in London in Europe. Of course, this would not have happened without the groundbreaking invention of the telephone, with Alexander Graham Bell being the exclusive holder of the industrial patent for the device on both sides of the ocean. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it was Bell who was the key figure behind the creation of the world’s first and, at the time, the world’s largest telecommunications company, de facto a kind of first-ever mobile operator. He founded Bell Telephone Company together with his colleague Gardiner Green Hubbard and gradually built it into the telecommunications giant American Telephone & Telegraph. Does this sound familiar? It should - the company still operates in the US today under the acronym AT&T and is still the largest supplier of mobile phones and landlines in the federation.


Video: AT&T - Introduction to the Dial Telephone

Breakthrough tube

Since the invention of the telephone, developments in telecommunications have not stopped. The discovery of radio waves impressed many other inventors who hoped to match Bell’s inventiveness. One of them was Guglielmo Marconi of Bologna, Italy, who fathered the first wireless telegraph system launched in December 1901 between St. John’s, the largest city in the Canadian province of Newfoundland, and the county of Cornwall in England. Unsurprisingly, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this achievement. But a year earlier, Reginald Fessenden had figured out how to wirelessly transmit recordings of the human voice. Both of these achievements heralded the birth of radio.



With television, it was a little more complicated. Its origins can be traced back to Japan, where in 1925 engineer Kenjiro Takayanagi first demonstrated the use of a television set operating on a cathode-ray tube with thermionic emission. Two years later, he improved the resolution of this device to one hundred lines, and in 1928 he stunned the world with the first image transmission of a human face. But telecommunications history was simultaneously being made in the UK, specifically in Scotland. In the same year that Takayanagi introduced his CRT television, a demonstration was held at Selfridge’s department store in London by Scottish inventor John Logie Baird who had figured out a way to remotely transmit moving human silhouettes. The system became known as mechanical television and the then-emerging British Broadcasting Company (BBC) had been experimenting with it since 1929.



But the century was to be dominated by Takayanagi’s cathode-ray tube. The CRT became the first dominant television technology worldwide, and German physicist Karl Braun is primarily credited for this. He organised the first public demonstration of his improved television at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1934, and in the same year, he was at the birth of the first-ever broadcasting company. John Logie Baird also gradually moved to CRT, and to him we owe the fact that television today is broadcast in colour. The technical ingenuity did not stop in the television environment and gradually became available in more and more countries as well as forgotten territories. This was made possible mainly through two inventions - the coaxial cable and the discovery of microwave frequencies.


Video: John Logie Baird and the First Television Demonstration

Old friends in action again

Around 1920, an expert debate started to link audio and video transmission technologies. The concept of videotelephony was relatively well known in both Europe and the United States at the time - but no one had yet presented a working device that would satisfy both sides of the debate. Of course, there was such a thing as a videophone, but it was far from perfect. Given that the greatest capacities in the field were involved in the development at the time, it was only a matter of time before a groundbreaking invention appeared. Eventually, however, the famous telecommunications history stars - John Logie Baird in the UK and Bell Labs operating under AT&T - came up with it.


Video: BBC - First video interview in the UK

The rise of videophony was initially very tentative, essentially in parallel with the improvement of traditional telephone communication systems. While the pioneers of the field anticipated that it would eventually become a more popular tool than traditional voice communication, the results were long in coming. The prophetic visions did not come to fruition until the end of the 20th century and were contingent on additional technological innovations. These included video codecs and high-speed connections, which, together with the launch of the global internet, heralded the arrival of a brand-new telecommunications era. Videotelephony evolved organically into internet telephony, users began to discover the benefits of video conferencing and webcams, and this has largely transformed the way we live and work.


Video: The Computer Chronicles - Internet Telephony

Everybody wants their time slot

The direction in which progress in the world of telecommunication technology was moving determined the dynamics of modern marketing. All of the above-mentioned formats were reflected in this ecosystem, but it was the invention of television that brought about perhaps the most significant paradigm shift. The first television, meant as a device, not a technology, was built in 1927 by a man named Philo Farnsworth. He was only twenty-one years old. It took more than ten years for the first television programme to be broadcast in 1939, followed by the first licensed programme in 1941. But 1945 was crucial for marketing as it was the year when the first advertisement appeared on television screens - a very simple promotion for the American watchmaker Bulova, which was initially seen by just four thousand New Yorkers. This marked another historic milestone.


Video: First television advertisement for Bulova watches

However, the celebrations were not to last long. The TV market soon realised its enormous potential, and the continued improvement of TV sets led to more and more companies being interested in airing their advertisements. By the 1950s, they were plentiful, with the largest car manufacturers, drug and medical corporations, and representatives of notorious industries such as the tobacco lobby waiting impatiently for their opportunity. It was clear that a new ecosystem was born that would need to be significantly regulated. Individual advertising formats also began to differentiate themselves, dominated by classic TV spots, product placement, and sponsorship of broadcast programmes. In the latter category, Coca-Cola was one of the first brands to score as early as 1950.


Video: First Coca-Cola advertising on TV

As the convenience of regulation became a necessity, the task of formulating rules fell to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), established in 1934. What challenges did the authority focus on? In the area of sponsored programs, it was necessary to enforce standards of transparency. Special attention was also paid to content that might offend the public or inappropriately address controversial social issues. In general terms, the FCC then sought to put together a set of rules for advertising that was above all socially responsible. Companies were mostly happy to comply, buying their advertising time at an average cost of $4,000 to $10,000.

On CNN all day long

The next stop on the road to today was the advent of cable television. It occurred in 1952 in Pennsylvania in reality while in regulatory terms, with the signing of the revolutionary Satellite Communications Act. Cable TV quickly became a welcome amenity among marketers across the U.S. because it brought more space for premium advertising and also provided more sophisticated tools for targeting advertising to specific groups of TV viewers. Stations like HBO and Showtime had subscribers who were willing to pay for premium content from the beginning, and so it was assumed that they would be similarly willing to spend on other premium products. The enthusiasm of marketers was also fuelled by the VCR boom. It was at that time that short, punchy commercials, catchy jingles, and infomercials started appearing, and celebrity endorsements made their debut.


Video: VRC sales ad

In 1980, news station CNN launched the first round-the-clock broadcast, which again meant a lot of new marketing opportunities. Following CNN’s lead, programming schedules began to be broken down into sub-topical segments - an ideal tool for marketers who could more reliably infer who was watching TV and when. Political news, business news, sports, entertainment - all of these categories suddenly had their own fixed timeframes, making it easier for companies to reach their target audiences. What was more, advertisers finally gained consistent access to global markets. And other popular TV stations were quick to follow CNN - the launch of 24/7 broadcasting on music station MTV a year later had a similarly monstrous impact. Given its different focus, advertising formats diversified further. If you wanted to advertise more seriously, you went to CNN. If you wanted more lighthearted content for consumers, you preferred MTV. And so on.


Video: CNN’s first broadcast

Collision of Worlds

Television marketing in the United States was literally reshaped by the Super Bowl in 1984. It was during this event that the legendary 1984 Apple commercial directed by Ridley Scott premiered. It not only put the then-little-known technology company among the world’s elite but also changed the nature of commercial breaks during this American football holiday. Classic advertising formats were replaced by spots with high production costs whose success was conditioned by the involvement of celebrities and the use of the best audiovisual technology available at the time. Since then, the Super Bowl has also been a celebration of television advertising and marketing in general. Ridley Scott’s 1984 was also important in another respect – Apple’s Macintosh was to be a symbol of originality and of breaking with tradition. Both of these have also become, to some extent, the mantra of modern television marketing.


Video: Apple Macintosh - 1984 (1984)

In the broadcaster-viewer relationship, the other side has since begun to gain the upper hand. In 2000, the TiVo digital video service was launched, which for the first time gave the user the option to choose not to watch advertising. Interactive television once again transformed the paradigm from the ground up, and marketers were once again faced with the challenge of dealing with this fundamental change. After DVD recorders came the internet - which both gave more freedom to users again, but also brought a host of new advertising options, this time in high definition. Other revolutions followed - the dawn of user-generated content was made possible by YouTube in 2005, and the magic of streaming was introduced by Netflix in 2007. Since then, it has been a short step to OTT and CTV, which are the standard these days. Each such revolution has also meant a revolution in TV advertising. The very notion of ‘television’ has ceased to be rigid and is now seen in a much broader context than during the last century.


Video: Advertisement for TiVo video service (2000)

It is the linking of television and the internet, symbolised by OTT and CTV systems, that is arguably the most important point of the past decade. It is now quite common to see interactive advertisements that want the user to be as active as possible. Advertising targeting options are also much more sophisticated. This can be attributed to smart TVs, for example, which were first launched by Roku and AppleTV, or the world’s biggest social networks that have also gradually launched their own streaming services. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit the world in 2019, we already had so much content available from home that we were not overly affected by the restrictions in this regard, quite the opposite.


Video: 2005 Netflix TV ads

Where to next?

Now, in 2024, we are on the cusp of another revolution that will change the telecommunications and marketing worlds. The rise in popularity and capabilities of generative AI is quite possibly the formative moment of the decade that history will remember. AI has had an invaluable role in marketing for many years, but only now are we starting to see more and more ads and campaigns that are more or less the product of AI. This is perhaps the most significant transformation we are currently experiencing. But it would be naive to think that this is the only revolution.


Video: OpenAI - Introducing GPT-4 (2023)

Other trends are bubbling up under the barrage of news about AI success. Leaving aside interactive ads, which are becoming increasingly sophisticated compared to their predecessors, the TV environment is increasingly being entered by both retail companies and completely new players with unique business models. The formation of so-called retail media networks (RMNs) is a goldmine for marketers, as companies like Amazon have truly robust databases of consumer information. Likewise, services that operate on the FAST model are extremely advantageous to them. These in turn are similar to popular streaming platforms - with the important difference that they are free. And it is access to popular content that is redeemed by the fact that the user has no control over when and what advertising the service delivers. This may seem like a step backwards, throwing the switch back in the broadcasters’ favour - but it is not quite true. It is just another opportunity for the user to have their own content, not pay for it, and just tolerate something. The decision is still theirs, there are plenty of alternatives.


Video: Roku - Welcome to the more delightful home with Roku (2023)

It is clear that telecommunications and its associated marketing are not at the end of their evolutionary cycle. Artificial intelligence will certainly change this ecosystem beyond recognition, with partial (and possibly more fundamental) shifts coming from RMNs, FAST, or other models we have no idea about yet. When you look at the situation we are in now, it is quite astounding that this whole journey started sometime back with the sending of the smoke signal in China. The death knell is certainly not ringing for telecoms - on the contrary, they are even more perfect, and you can never be sure what they will surprise you with next year.