Print ads in Serbia then-and-now: A comparison of print ads published in Politika daily in 1922 vs. 2022

Abstract

The paper focuses on the content analysis of the print advertisements in Serbia aiming to compare the print media advertising in the two time periods, i.e. in the years of 1922 and 2022. The comparison is based on the selected issues of the most prominent Serbian daily paper "Politika" with the continuation of publishing for more than one century. The commercial ads placed in "Politika" in December 1922 as well as December 2022 have been randomly selected and analyzed. Besides expected reduction in the number of placed ads as a result of the current changes on the advertising market brought by the proliferation of new media channels, the most interesting differences in print advertising in the second decade of the 20th and 21st centuries have been found in regard to the types of advertisers, advertising creatives as well as the use of Cyrilic and Latin letters. In conclusion, the authors argue that print advertising, though with a substantially reduced share within the overall media advertising budgets, has remained an important media communications tool particularly for its role in the development of broader stakeholder relations.