Introduction
A Roman street wall could be a noticeboard, a campaign poster, a shop sign, a public recommendation, a joke, a political appeal and a commercial surface at the same time. When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, the ash, pumice and volcanic material that destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum also preserved a unique archive of everyday communication. Almost 2,000 years later, the walls of these cities still show that marketing practices did not begin with newspapers, billboards or digital advertising. They existed in urban spaces where merchants, politicians, innkeepers, gladiatorial sponsors, artisans and customers competed for attention.
The topic is historically important because Pompeii gives us something rare: not only elite texts, monuments or official inscriptions, but ordinary urban messages in their physical context. Electoral notices, gladiatorial announcements, shop signs, tavern references, price information, endorsements, erotic graffiti, directional signs and wall paintings reveal a city in which economic, social and political communication was visible in the streets. The eruption of Vesuvius therefore preserved not only buildings and bodies, but also a communication landscape.
For marketing history, these finds are highly relevant. Philip Kotler’s understanding of marketing as the creation, communication and delivery of value can be used carefully to interpret Roman urban communication: sellers communicated availability, patrons communicated generosity, candidates communicated suitability, and entertainment organizers communicated events (Kotler and Keller, 2016). Hartmut Berghoff’s idea of marketing as a historically developed social technique is also useful, because Pompeii shows marketing before modern corporations, brands and advertising agencies: it was embedded in walls, streets, markets, patronage, spectacle and everyday exchange (Berghoff, 2007). Eric H. Shaw’s work on ancient and medieval marketing supports this broader view by arguing that many market-related practices existed long before the modern marketing discipline (Shaw, 2016). The historical marketing framework represented by CHARM, the Journal of Historical Research in Marketing and The Routledge Companion to Marketing History is therefore especially suitable for examining Pompeii not as a curiosity, but as evidence for early marketing practices (Jones and Tadajewski, 2016). The Journal of Historical Research in Marketing explicitly focuses on marketing history and the history of marketing thought, making this type of historically grounded analysis methodologically appropriate.
Pompeii as an Archive of Everyday Marketing
Pompeii and Herculaneum were not frozen museums in AD 79. They were living towns with shops, houses, workshops, bars, bakeries, baths, temples, theatres, brothels, political networks and entertainment venues. Their walls were active communication surfaces. Because the eruption buried the cities, many of these messages survived in a way that is unusual for ancient urban history.
In most ancient cities, temporary wall writing disappeared through weather, rebuilding or repainting. Pompeii preserved layers of messages that would otherwise have been lost. This makes the city especially valuable for the history of advertising and marketing. It allows us to see how communication functioned not only in official monuments but in ordinary streets.
The surviving material must be interpreted carefully. Not every wall inscription is “advertising” in the modern sense. Some are political notices, some are private graffiti, some are jokes, some are erotic comments, some are records of presence, some are announcements, and some are commercial signals. Yet this variety is precisely what makes Pompeii important. It shows that commercial communication was part of a wider ecology of urban writing.
Fred K. Beard argues that ancient advertising practices can provide useful insights for modern advertising research, especially because they reveal early forms of attention-seeking, persuasion and public communication (Beard, 2017). Pompeii is one of the strongest archaeological cases for this argument. It shows that advertising was not only a printed or industrial phenomenon. It was also a wall-based, spatial and socially embedded practice.
Wall Writing as Urban Media
The walls of Pompeii functioned as urban media. They were visible to pedestrians, customers, voters, travellers and residents. Unlike a scroll, which had to be read by someone with access to it, a wall inscription existed in public space. Unlike a monument, which was usually official and durable, many wall notices were temporary, topical and practical.
This makes Pompeian wall communication structurally similar to later outdoor advertising. A wall notice had to be positioned where people would see it. It had to be concise. It had to be legible at street level. It often relied on formulaic wording, large painted letters or recognizable imagery. The medium shaped the message.
The most important point is that Roman urban advertising was spatial. Meaning depended on location. A notice near a busy street, shopfront, bath, tavern, gate or amphitheatre reached different audiences than a notice in a quiet residential lane. Eeva-Maria Viitanen and Laura Nissin’s work on electoral programmata emphasizes the importance of contextualizing inscriptions in their physical and social surroundings rather than treating them as isolated texts (Viitanen and Nissin, 2017).
This is highly relevant to marketing history. Modern outdoor advertising still depends on location, visibility, traffic and audience movement. Pompeii shows that these principles were already present in Roman urban communication. The difference is not the basic logic of attention, but the material form.
Electoral Programmata: Political Marketing on Roman Walls
The best-known form of Pompeian wall communication is the electoral programma. These painted campaign notices urged voters to support candidates for local office. They were usually short and formulaic, often naming the candidate and the office, followed by a recommendation. Some were endorsed by individuals or groups, such as neighbours, tradespeople or associations.
Electoral programmata are not commercial advertising, but they are central to marketing history because they show early persuasive public communication. Candidates needed visibility, endorsement, reputation and public presence. The wall became a campaign medium. The message had to be repeated across the city. The candidate’s name became a kind of political brand.
Viitanen and Nissin’s research on Pompeian electoral programmata stresses the need to study these inscriptions in context, including their placement and visibility in urban space (Viitanen and Nissin, 2017). Their work shows that campaign notices were not random scribbles; they were part of structured public communication.
From a marketing perspective, these notices reveal several recognizable practices. They used repetition to build familiarity. They used endorsement to create trust. They used public placement to signal legitimacy. They relied on concise wording because the medium required quick recognition. These are not modern marketing techniques in a corporate sense, but they are historical predecessors of political advertising and reputation management.
Endorsement and Social Proof in Pompeian Campaigns
A striking feature of many Pompeian election notices is endorsement. A candidate might be recommended by neighbours, groups, tradesmen or named supporters. Such endorsements mattered because Roman local politics was strongly connected to social networks, patronage and reputation.
In modern marketing language, this resembles social proof. A person is more persuasive when others publicly support him. In Pompeii, a wall notice did not only say “vote for this candidate.” It could also say, implicitly or explicitly, “people like us support this candidate.” This gave the message social weight.
The comparison should not be pushed too far. Roman electoral culture was not modern democratic campaigning. Voting rights, social hierarchy, patronage and elite status shaped politics profoundly. Yet the communicative principle is familiar: endorsement reduces uncertainty and strengthens credibility.
This is why electoral programmata are valuable for marketing history. They show that persuasion in public space depended not only on message content but on who appeared to stand behind the message.
Gladiatorial Games and Event Advertising
Another major category of Roman promotional communication involved public spectacles, especially gladiatorial games. Announcements for games, known in scholarship as edicta munerum, informed the public about upcoming events, sponsors, performers, dates and attractions. Pompeii provides especially rich evidence because its amphitheatre and entertainment culture formed an important part of urban life.
Recent scholarship has treated these announcements explicitly as advertising and promotion of gladiatorial games. Anna Miączewska’s work on edicta munerum examines advertising and promotion of gladiatorial games in ancient Pompeii and shows that inscriptions, acclamations, graffiti and related evidence are important sources for understanding spectacle communication (Miączewska, 2025).
This is one of the clearest examples of ancient event marketing. The sponsor of games gained prestige by providing entertainment. The public received information and anticipation. The wall notice connected spectacle, patronage and reputation. A gladiatorial announcement was therefore not merely practical information. It also promoted the generosity and status of the editor or sponsor.
In modern terms, one could compare this to event posters, sports advertising, sponsorship communication and public relations. Roman sponsors used spectacle to build social capital. The announcement promoted both the event and the person behind it. That dual function remains central to modern sponsorship.
Sponsorship, Patronage and Reputation
Roman advertising cannot be separated from patronage. Many public events, buildings, donations and spectacles were sponsored by wealthy individuals seeking honour, influence and public gratitude. In Pompeii, a gladiatorial show was not only entertainment; it was a public act of generosity. Advertising such an event meant advertising the sponsor’s civic value.
This connects Roman communication with modern reputation marketing. A company sponsoring a sports event today often seeks public goodwill. A Roman elite sponsor of games sought something similar in a different social order: honour, support, visibility and status. The logic of exchange was not purely commercial. It was political, social and symbolic.
Berghoff’s view of marketing as a social technique is helpful here (Berghoff, 2007). Marketing is not only selling goods. It is also the organized shaping of perception, legitimacy and social relations. Roman patronage advertising shows this clearly. It linked generosity with public recognition.
Shop Signs, Trade Symbols and Retail Communication
Pompeii also provides evidence of commercial spaces and retail communication. Shops, workshops, bakeries, taverns and food sellers used signs, paintings, symbols and visible product arrangements to attract customers. Some signs may have been textual, but many were visual because literacy levels varied and because images were immediately recognizable.
Roman shops often opened directly onto the street. The shopfront itself was an advertisement. Goods could be displayed; counters faced the street; smells, sounds and activity attracted attention. This was a sensory and spatial marketing environment, not only a textual one.
The study of Roman retailing is relevant here. Research on ancient shops and shopkeepers shows that fixed-point retailing in Rome developed sophisticated forms of urban commercial presence (Vennarucci, 2015). Stanley C. Hollander’s broader retail-history approach is also useful because it reminds us that retail communication must be studied through stores, distribution, location and consumer practices, not only through advertising texts (Hollander, 1986).
In Pompeii, a baker did not need a modern brand campaign to communicate availability. The oven, millstones, street-facing counter, painted sign and daily customer flow did part of the work. Marketing was embedded in the architecture of the shop.
Taverns, Food, Wine and Hospitality
Pompeii’s bars and taverns, often called thermopolia, were among the most visible commercial spaces in the city. They sold prepared food and drink, often to people who did not cook at home or who wanted quick refreshment. Their counters opened onto the street and could include painted decoration, amphorae, food containers and social activity.
Marketing in such settings was immediate and sensory. Smell, visibility, crowding, location and familiarity mattered. A tavern near a busy route, bath or theatre had a natural advantage. The owner’s reputation and the atmosphere of the place were part of the offer.
Wall writing around bars could also include informal recommendations, jokes or comments. This blurs the line between advertising and customer review. Pompeii’s graffiti culture shows that customers and visitors participated in the reputation of places. Not every inscription was placed by the business owner. Some were left by users, clients or passers-by. That makes Pompeii unusually modern in one respect: it preserves not only official messages but also user-generated communication.
Brothels, Erotic Graffiti and Commercial Visibility
Pompeii is famous for erotic graffiti and evidence connected to prostitution. This material must be treated carefully and without sensationalism. Some inscriptions refer to sexual services, prices, names or evaluations. Scholars have argued that prostitution-related graffiti should be studied in context, because it can reveal social interaction, masculinity, status, humour, commercial exchange and public/private boundaries.
Research on street activity and wall inscriptions in Pompeii notes that prostitution-related sites were often associated with bars on street corners and with the purpose-built brothel, while graffiti functioned as part of social interaction in these spaces (Viitanen, 2013).
From a marketing-history perspective, this evidence matters because it shows that services as well as goods could be promoted, named, priced and reviewed. Roman urban marketing was not limited to objects. It included entertainment, hospitality, food, sex work, politics and status services.
This does not mean that every erotic inscription was an advertisement. Some were boasts, insults, jokes or records of experience. But the presence of names, prices and recommendations shows that service communication existed in informal wall writing. It also shows that ancient marketing could be socially messy, unofficial and participatory.
Graffiti as User-Generated Content
Pompeian graffiti are often compared loosely to social media because they preserve jokes, arguments, love notes, insults, poems, names, drawings and comments. The comparison is imperfect, but not useless. Graffiti were public, interactive, cumulative and often informal. They allowed ordinary people to leave traces in shared space.
A recent Smithsonian article notes that Pompeii preserves a wide range of graffiti and that one building, the Campus ad Amphitheatrum, has more than 400 handwritten inscriptions; popular locations included brothels, baths and private homes (Smithsonian Magazine, 2025).
For marketing history, graffiti are valuable because they show that urban communication was not monopolized by authorities or merchants. Audiences could respond, recommend, mock, boast and reinterpret. Modern marketers often speak of user-generated content and earned media. Pompeii reminds us that public communication has long been dialogic. Walls could carry official notices, but they could also carry audience commentary.
Wall Painting, Image and Commercial Persuasion
Pompeii also preserved wall paintings that contributed to commercial communication. Images outside or inside shops could signal the type of business, evoke abundance, show products or create atmosphere. A tavern painting might depict food or drink; a fullery might use imagery connected to cloth work; a bakery might signal production through equipment and spatial arrangement.
Visual communication was especially important in a mixed-literacy environment. Images could communicate faster and more broadly than text. This relates to Jonathan E. Schroeder’s work on visual branding, which emphasizes that images organize meaning and identity rather than merely decorate communication (Schroeder, 2016). In Pompeii, visual signs helped classify spaces and guide behaviour.
This visual dimension is crucial because the history of marketing is not only the history of words. It is also the history of symbols, colours, spatial cues, displays, gestures and material culture. Pompeii is valuable because it preserves many of these non-textual forms.
Price, Product and Offer Communication
Some ancient inscriptions included price information or practical details. Price communication is one of the most basic marketing practices because it reduces uncertainty and enables exchange. In Roman urban settings, prices could be communicated orally, through negotiation, through posted lists or through informal inscriptions.
The presence of price-related graffiti in contexts such as prostitution or hospitality shows that ancient marketing could include direct offer information. Modern advertising often separates brand-building from price promotion, but Roman wall communication frequently combined social, practical and transactional content.
This is an important reminder: marketing does not begin with sophisticated branding. It begins with making an offer intelligible. Who sells? What is offered? Where? At what value? To whom? Pompeii gives evidence for these basic questions in a physical urban environment.
Distribution, Location and Roman Market Structure
Marketing practices in Pompeii cannot be understood without distribution and location. Robert D. Tamilia’s work on distribution history is useful in a broad sense because it reminds historians that marketing is not only persuasion but also getting goods and services to market (Tamilia, 2016). In Pompeii, retail locations, street networks, proximity to gates, baths, theatres and markets shaped commercial opportunity.
A shop near heavy pedestrian traffic had an advantage. A tavern near a bath or amphitheatre could reach specific customer flows. A political notice placed on a prominent street had greater visibility. These are ancient forms of what modern retail would call location strategy.
Pompeii’s archaeological evidence therefore connects advertising with urban geography. Messages were not floating texts. They were tied to walls, doorways, crossroads and commercial frontages.
Roman Marketing Was Not Modern Marketing
It is important to avoid anachronism. Romans did not have marketing departments, brand managers, advertising agencies or digital analytics. Their economy, politics, literacy patterns and social hierarchies were very different from modern capitalist markets. Therefore, it would be misleading to claim that Pompeian wall notices were “marketing” in exactly the same sense as a modern campaign.
Yet it would be equally misleading to deny the existence of marketing practices. If marketing is understood broadly as organized communication that supports exchange, reputation, persuasion, visibility and value, Pompeii provides strong evidence. There were offers, endorsements, event promotions, political campaigns, service references, shop signs, prices, reputational messages and visual cues.
This is the position supported by historical marketing scholarship. Jones and Tadajewski’s Routledge Companion to Marketing History encourages a broad historical understanding of marketing rather than a narrow focus on 20th-century managerial theory (Jones and Tadajewski, 2016). Shaw’s work on ancient and medieval marketing likewise demonstrates that marketing-related phenomena are historically deep (Shaw, 2016).
Comparison with Modern Outdoor Advertising
Pompeian wall writing resembles modern outdoor advertising in several respects. It was public, spatial, brief, repetitive and visually dependent. It competed for attention in busy environments. It relied on location and legibility. It often used formulaic wording.
However, it differed in production and regulation. Modern outdoor advertising is usually professionally planned, bought and regulated. Pompeian wall communication involved painters, supporters, business owners, clients, passers-by and informal writers. Some messages were official-looking; others were spontaneous. The wall was a shared and contested medium.
This makes Pompeii especially interesting. It shows a media environment before modern professionalization. Advertising, graffiti, politics and personal expression overlapped. Inger L. Stole’s and Stuart Ewen’s histories of modern advertising and public relations show how later communication industries professionalized persuasion (Ewen, 1976; Stole, 2006). Pompeii reveals an earlier stage in which persuasion was urban, direct and materially embedded.
Pompeii, Herculaneum and the Archaeology of Attention
Herculaneum, like Pompeii, was preserved by the eruption, though in different volcanic conditions. It provides important evidence for Roman domestic, commercial and social life. Pompeii, however, remains especially famous for wall inscriptions because the city’s preserved surfaces offer unusually rich evidence of public writing.
Together, these Vesuvian sites show that attention was already a scarce resource in antiquity. People used walls to attract voters, customers, spectators and clients. They used names, images, endorsements, prices and repetition. The archaeological survival of these messages allows historians to reconstruct not only what Romans bought or watched, but how they were invited to act.
This is why Pompeii is so valuable for marketing.museum. It demonstrates that marketing history is not a straight line beginning with modern advertising agencies. It is a much longer history of human efforts to make offers visible and persuasive.
Lessons for Marketing History
Pompeii teaches several core lessons.
First, marketing is older than modern capitalism. Roman wall communication shows that exchange and persuasion were linked long before modern advertising.
Second, media are shaped by space. Walls, streets, shops and gates structured who saw what.
Third, trust and endorsement mattered. Electoral notices and recommendations show that social proof was already powerful.
Fourth, marketing was participatory. Graffiti reveal responses, comments and informal reputational signals.
Fifth, commercial communication existed beside political, erotic, social and entertainment communication. Ancient urban media were mixed, not neatly categorized.
These lessons help place Pompeii within the broader history of marketing thought. Robert Bartels studied the history of marketing thought largely as a modern academic field (Bartels, 1988), but Pompeii reminds us that marketing practices are much older than marketing theory. The discipline emerged late; the practices emerged early.
Conclusion
The eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79 destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, but it also preserved one of the most important archives of early urban communication. Pompeii’s walls show that Roman cities contained many practices that can be understood as predecessors of marketing: election notices, event promotion, shop signs, service references, price information, endorsements, customer comments and visual place-marking.
These practices were not modern marketing in the narrow managerial sense. There were no brand departments, no agencies and no analytics dashboards. But there were markets, audiences, reputations, offers, symbols, media surfaces and persuasive messages. That is why Pompeii is so important for marketing history.
The walls of Pompeii reveal that marketing began not as a spreadsheet or a television commercial, but as a human attempt to be noticed in public space. A candidate wanted votes. A sponsor wanted prestige. A tavern wanted customers. A service provider wanted clients. A spectator wanted news of games. A passer-by wanted to leave a comment. The wall became the medium.
For a modern reader, Pompeii’s greatest lesson is that marketing has always been social, spatial and symbolic. Technologies change, but the underlying challenge remains: to make value visible, credible and memorable.
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