Welcome to www.PatrickJohnConnelly.com. This site is owned and curated by me, Patrick Connelly. I am presently a second semester graduate student at Southern New Hampshire University where I am studying public relations. In creating this website, I am hopeful that I will entertainingly, informatively, and ethically guide its visitors on a journey through the evolution of advertising from the first known advertisement brushed onto papyrus in ancient Egypt in 3000 B.C. by a weaver looking for his slave (Kernan, 2021) to today's culturally inclusive viral advertisements that not only promote a product, but also encourage kind behavior and acceptance (Does Socially, 2020).

This site will merge and demonstrate both my personal and professional brands. My personal mission statement is prominently displayed below my name above. My professional brand and personal brands will complement each other. I intend for my professional brand to be entertainingly educational. I hope to evoke emotions of kindness, compassion, and understanding in the work I produce. Above all else, I intend to embrace honesty and the beauty of cultural diversity. How boring would the world be if we were all the same? Until just a decade or two ago, most advertising treated us as though we were all the same, middle-class heterosexual Caucasian men. Advertisements that represented minorities and women tended to rudely embrace and propagate stereotypes, as is very eloquently explained in this essay provided by The ANA Educational Foundation African Americans and Advertising · African Americans and Advertising · Race & Ethnicity in Advertising | America in the 20th Century (raceandethnicity.org). In addition to racism, advertising has a long history of being sexist, ageist, and deceptive. This website will not only explore the definition of advertising and the evolution of advertising, but we will also witness examples of sexism, racism, ageism, and deception in advertising. Perhaps my most favorite page to curate was Social Awareness in Contemporary Advertising. This page offers eight advertisements from around the world that demonstrate kindness, acceptance, perseverance, and love. None of these commercials mention the product being promoted until the very end. None of these commercials tell the viewers they need to use their product to be happy. These commercials are incredibly powerful and effective.

The final page of this website compares and contrasts the benefits and risks that social media poses to society. Social media is the next frontier in advertising.

Again, welcome to my website. I now invite you to join me on a journey through the cultural history and evolution of advertising.