Historical Overview of Advertising Promise
The contribution is intended to provide a detailed disclosure of certain well-known and especially lesser-known periods in the history of advertising. Thus, we can offer a comprehensive insight into this interesting social phenomenon. The focus of the paper is the ever-changing concept of advertising promise that represents a basic foundation of any advertising strategy. We researched 10 eras of advertising promises that appeared in the known history. The first two eras deal with the advertising history of preindustrial society. The next six eras cover the best-researched part of modern advertising. The last two eras represent contemporary trends and directions for a possible future change in advertising promise development. It is hoped that this article has proposed a new contribution to the literature in this otherwise less-researched field of advertising theory. The main findings of this author's research can be characterized firstly as the establishment of a notion that advertising is not the exclusive product of capitalism and industrial society and secondly, that advertising has faced a constant crisis throughout history. In order to survive and to be effective, it has to demonstrate its permanent and inherent creativity. The article concludes with the dilemma of whether advertising has completed its full circle or whether there is a whole new world of opportunities ahead. 
 
 
Keywords: 
 
history; 
eras; 
advertising; 
promise; 
creativity
A theory of postmodern advertising
This paper challenges the ‘manipulation’ thesis of advertising which was prevalent in the early post-war years. Despite the concerted beginnings of a leisure ethos in the 1950s, advertising was still regarded, in the puritan tradition, as immoral. Advertising, as ‘appearance’, was opposed to ‘truth’ and ‘utility’. It was not until the social liberation movements of the 1960s that this dialectical view of society receded, and the principle of affluence that took hold in the 1950s was brought to its logical conclusion. Society was no longer seen to be forged out of the struggle between self-restraint and irrational excess, but driven by irrepressible want. In the postmodern situation, advertising, as rhetoric, is no longer regarded as subordinate to production. Instead, it is a mirror to consumer society—to the constant turnover of superfluous cultural commodities or fads. Postmodern consumers are not simply manipulated by ads; they respond to them on a mediated, ‘knowing’ level. As such, they react best to ads that are irreverent and self-referential.
Correlation of the Upper Cretaceous White Chalk (Turonian to Campanian) in the Anglo-Paris Basin
Using key lithological, biostratigraphic and geophysical borehole-log markers a correlation of the Upper Cretaceous Chalk stratigraphies across the whole Anglo-Paris Basin has been achieved. A common lithological marker bed stratigraphy applies and key fossil markers (inoceramids, Micraster and Echinocorys ) are consistently related to the same lithological markers throughout the basin. The major lithological changes consistently occur at the same levels but are not necessarily equally strongly developed. The magnificent dip section along the French Channel coast between the Somme and the Seine, and the inland sections at Precy-sur-Oise and Verlin (Loiret) illustrate the influence of long-lived tectonic lines on Chalk sedimentation history recognised by: (i) rapid thickness variations; (ii) channel flooring hardgrounds and associated anomalous bedding dips: (iii) stratigraphically anomalous infills of channels which may be metres to kilometres across; (iv) redeposited chalks containing abundant Bathichnus paramoudrae ; (v) tectonically induced slumps and slides with flint and chalk shatter beds (palaeoseismic horizons). These features are found along may axes including the Anticlinal du Bray at Precy and Dieppe, the Anticlinal de Margny-les-Compiegne at Nourard le-Franc and Le Treport (the Bresle Valley Axis) and the Fecamp and Verlin fault systems. The ‘events’ recognised along these axes link with similar events recognised in Sussex (e.g. Kingston Anticline), on Portsdown, at Culver Cliff, Isle of Wight (Sandown Pericline) and on the Weymouth Anticline (White Nothe). Such events are common in the high Turonian, low Coniacian, basal Santonian, and the low and mid Campanian. The recurrence of key marker beds dominated by a particular trace fossil association or sequence, Bathichnus-Thalassinoides suevicus-Zoophycos associated with major changes in lithology, micro and macro-fauna indicates more widespread ‘oceanographic’ cycles of transgression and regression related to Atlantic opening.