Eighteenth-century British producers such as Josiah Wedgwood began using branding, catalogues, showrooms, and celebrity endorsement to sell manufactured goods. These practices helped create modern consumer marketing.

The first modern consumer advertising campaigns for packaged goods in 1744 ushered in an era of branding that permeated poetry and satire. Poets began to critique the relationship between beauty, luxury, and commerce, exploring themes of social climbing and the moral implications of consumption.